Well, all the important things went fine–the surgery, Dad’s recovery–just all the auxiliary stuff got crazy.
After BrotherTwo and I left the hospital Thursday, Dad had to get his catheter put back in, which he was MOST UNHAPPY about. But, as the surgeon explained, they just did a perfectly successful and very complicated robotic surgery on his kidney, and do not want to stress that out and screw everything up, so they are being VERY conservative about it.
Then Stepmom found herself locked out of the B&B where she was staying, and had to ultimately rouse a neighbor and climb over the back fence.
Then the catheter was taken back out yesterday morning, whereupon ensued many hours of, well, measuring and scoping. And measuring and scoping, and measuring and scoping. Until they ultimately put it back in.
They had been insisting that he would be released at 8am yesterday. Nobody believed that, of course; but we were willing to buy 10am, or even 2pm maybe. Safe in the assumption that it would be Real Soon Now, Mark and I headed off to the south bay around 1:30 (him to work with his web guru, me to visit Chaz and Karen).
Finally, at 7:15, having heard nothing, we called Stepmom, only to learn that they were just leaving the hospital. (WITH catheter.)
That wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have a 3 1/2 hour drive home from there. :/
But they made it–I got an email at 11:30 reporting their safe arrival. And now Mark and I are packing up to head northward, leaving BrotherOne’s house to–well, actually, the housesitter, because BrotherOne is on a plane to Senegal this morning.
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It’s been a challenge, keeping up with communication during all this! I mean, even between one another, with all these moving parts–but certainly with anyone who’s not here. It’s not a technology problem–we all have smart phones–just… it becomes such a thing of immediacy, of dealing with what’s right in front of you. Even if what’s right in front of you is just your dad in a hospital bed, a little cranky but healing fine. So, I apologize for being a poor reporter and correspondent, and thank everyone for all their good thoughts and wishes for Dad! 🙂