Feb. 23rd, 2010 09:30 am
The big sleep
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muckefuckEven after talking to the surgeon last night we still weren't sure he'd be able to fit Dad in today. It wasn't until close to 11 p.m., when someone from anesthesiology came in to interview him, that I was convinced they were going ahead. He led Dad step-by-step through the entire procedure while I dutifully took note of the various drugs involved (Versed, Fentenyl, Etomidate, maybe some morphine) to ask my mom about later. It took at least twenty minutes, and after he was gone so was some of Dad's glibness. "It's sinking in what a big deal this is," he confessed to me.
But he got some of it back when the "vampires" returned to search for unexploited spider veins to exploit. At times their laughter seemed more than polite as Dad met their attempts with a running commentary. The night nurse coaxed him into the bed where she had better light and he accidentally turned the TV on. Which is how I ended up spending the better part of an hour or so listening to someone who--as far as I know--has never been skiing in his life critiquing the landings of Belarusian ski jumpers.
More than once he invited me to crash on the fold-out bed in the room, but I begged off knowing that I'd never get a moment's rest there, and continued to give excuses even after it occurred to me that he was of course asking more for his benefit than my own. It's going to be hard enough getting his wife through the long afternoon (he goes in at 11 a.m. and they're expecting it to take five hours) even with the six hours of good sleep I got from cabbing it back home.
Thanks for the good thoughts. Right now my heart goes out to my sister, who's having a tough time sitting it out in St Louis while all this is going down. She told me now she has perspective on what it's been like for us during past parental surgeries, but I think I'm more out-of-sight, out-of-mind than her, so it was a different, easier experience for me.
But he got some of it back when the "vampires" returned to search for unexploited spider veins to exploit. At times their laughter seemed more than polite as Dad met their attempts with a running commentary. The night nurse coaxed him into the bed where she had better light and he accidentally turned the TV on. Which is how I ended up spending the better part of an hour or so listening to someone who--as far as I know--has never been skiing in his life critiquing the landings of Belarusian ski jumpers.
More than once he invited me to crash on the fold-out bed in the room, but I begged off knowing that I'd never get a moment's rest there, and continued to give excuses even after it occurred to me that he was of course asking more for his benefit than my own. It's going to be hard enough getting his wife through the long afternoon (he goes in at 11 a.m. and they're expecting it to take five hours) even with the six hours of good sleep I got from cabbing it back home.
Thanks for the good thoughts. Right now my heart goes out to my sister, who's having a tough time sitting it out in St Louis while all this is going down. She told me now she has perspective on what it's been like for us during past parental surgeries, but I think I'm more out-of-sight, out-of-mind than her, so it was a different, easier experience for me.
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I hope all has turned out well.
no subject
greatly relieved