Hello, there!

First off, once more my profound thanks to everyone who sent me messages on behalf of my mother in law. They were very greatly appreciated, and had the desired effect--the surgery was a breeze (well, in a relative sense) and everything points toward a full recovery. The tumor turned out to be a bit smaller than thought, and pending a final report from the pathologist, it doesn't look like it spread anywhere else. She gets to come home today, and as I told Miss Lee Ann, she will probably start overdoing it immediately. After the first of the year, she will have a six week course of radiation, and will be placed on tamoxifen.

The worst part of the whole thing was the waiting. Not from worrying or whatnot, just the sheer boredom of standing or sitting around with nothing to do. I read both the morning and afternoon papers, the People Sexiest Man 2002 issue, a pain medication office display, and a brochure about the cardiology department. We got to the hospital around 8:15, got her admitted, waited, went to the nuclear medicine department, waited, watched someone else get an armload of isotopes, took her upstairs to wait for her tracer to spread around, which took two hours. By this time, four of her siblings arrived from the far distant reaches of Millport--three sisters and a brother (she has eight siblings)--and they all kept up a running conversation for the full two hours. My father in law's sister and her husband came by and added to the din. They all talk a lot like I blog--lots of unimportant detail, references to places and people no one else knows about, much earnestness, a fondness for the odd--the only exception being you aren't stuck in a small room with me with nowhere to stand and no means of escape.

Finally, it came time to take her to surgery, so the escort came in, commented on the heavy packing of the room, loaded up his patient and led us to the next floor. We even all managed to get on the elevator together--mom, Hill-Rom bed, escort, dad, Reba, me, four siblings, two siblings in law. We got to the surgical floor and had an explosion of burly folks out into the elevator lobby, then in a few minutes she was whisked off to parts unknown.

Reba and I went and got lunch and brought some back for her dad, which killed an hour and a half or so, our preacher came by for a few minutes, the doctor came out and told us everything went fine, ANOTHER one of her brothers and his wife came by for a bit, and then we found out that all the hospital beds were occupied and she was going to have to wait in recovery until one opened up. She finally got into a room around six. In the mean time, I had gone to pick up the kids from school while Reba waited with her dad. We got back up and finally she got a room, so the kids got to go back and gape at her in equal amounts of fear and fascination. They have all been to the hospital numerous times and seen people hooked up to IVs and monitors and stuff, yet they still have to touch every part of the bed, screw with the adjustable table, play with the swing down bedpan washer on the toilet, keep putting their fingers jussst....thissss....clooooose to the IV regulator, asking what this is for, playing right beside the sharps containter, picking up stuff off the floor. Of the whole procedure, I was unstrung more by watching the Wrecking Crew than by anything else. I finally convinced Catherine to come with me to the "other little room with chairs" just for my own sanity. I bribed her with a handful of Jelly Bellies from the vending machine, and she picked up another of the cardiology department brochures and pretended it was a menu and that she was the maitre d'. At least she wasn't yanking on the nurse call.

We finally left around 7:30 or thereabouts, stopped and got some fast food, got home and dunked them all in the tub and sent them to bed.

Long day.

And going to be a long one today--I have to catch up on all the stuff I was supposed to do yesterday. When I'm here, it never seems busy, but leave for a day and there is a huge stack of crap to catch up on. SO, not much more from me this morning, EXCEPT...

Many of you remember my fun with MRS. HANJI SAL of the BIG INTERNATIONAL BANK in the COTE D' IVOIRE. I thought it was pretty funny to string one of these jokers along, but H.D. Miller at Travelling Shoes has found an Aussie fellow who is the absolute KING of Nigerian e-mail spoofery. Read 'em all, and be prepared for a good chuckle, and don't miss the archives!

So then, to work all of you, and I'll check back in with you this afternoon.
posted by Terry at 9:06:00 AM