At 8 pm last night my father had a stroke.

Since he had been diagnosed with an inner ear infection, that is all he thought he had. He fell down. My mom helped him up and, with her walker, took him to the bedroom. He decided he wanted to go to the bathroom and fell into their sunken tub, giving himself a concussion.

He threw up.

He wouldn’t let my mother call an ambulance since apparently my mother loves ambulances. He did let her call my sister, who immediately hung up and called 911 for my dad.

They recognized at the hospital immediately that he had had a stroke. But since he’s on medicare it took them three hours to get him approved and transferred to the hospital to which he needed to go. They would not let us pay for the ambulance to get him there faster. It all had to be Medicare approved. (And people want universal healthcare. Are they crazy?)

He was supposed to have surgery, but they put it off until tomorrow.