The Thing With Japan...

When this post goes live I should be in Kyoto, Japan and my dad hopefully is in a better state than when I left last Friday. 

Thirteen years ago, my mum left for Japan and the same night my dad called me in Vienna telling me he could barely breathe and when I offered to come, he was very grateful. I hopped into the car and arrived in Klagenfurt before Midnight, driving him to hospital the following day. Until then, neither my mum nor myself were aware of the fact that he already had severe COPD after decades of smoking. Long story short, I took care of it, got him admitted to the pulmonary department of Klagenfurt's main hospital and we decided not to inform my mum so as not get her worried and ruin her vacation. This was in the days before daily communication via WhatsApp regardless of your location, so it was easy to "fool" her. I had actually planned to fly to London that same week, meeting the Empress there, who was on a business trip and then to take the Eurostar train (spoiler: still have not taken it to this date) together with her to Paris, where she then lived. I ended up staying in Klagenfurt longer, not using my outbound flight and Eurostar ticket and taking the train from Klagenfurt via Mannheim to Paris instead. Dad also gave up smoking right there and then, but the damage was done and his (physical) health has deteriorated considerably since then. So has his mental health lately and he has been very depressed and grumpy (refusing to do anything about it), making life seriously miserable for my Mum and getting me very concerned of course, not only because I am the only child who lives 300+ kilometres away.

The situation escalated last week when I was in Carinthia for my Mum's birthday and I accompanied him to the ER because, again, he felt he could not breathe. I ended up spending over 7 hours at the  hospital until he got admitted and at the time I am writing this, the day before leaving, he has been moved to the geratric ward after days at a normal private patients unit where, after an initial mood lift when he was almost his old sarcastic version, he turned extremely dejected and pessimistic again, not even responding to my messages with a thumbs-up or his favourite emoji of choice, the Eyeroll. To say I am apprehensive and concerned before my trip is putting it mildly. Part of me wishes that I was as blissfully unaware of the situation at home as my mum was back then, wishing that at least he'll be much better by the time I return as was the case back then. Fingers crossed!