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The catheterization showed several of my dad's arteries were clogged, so he was moved to a bigger hospital a couple of days ago. We met with a cardiac surgeon Wednesday night, and he recommended bypass surgery, but said that there weren't any immediate openings in the schedule. He did say, though, that there were often cancellations, so he recommended we be prepared for surgery at any time.

"Any time" turned out to be Thursday morning. There was a cancellation, and they got him in mid-morning yesterday. I got to the hospital about 6:45 a.m., and spent the day and evening there with my mother and sister; my brother was there off and on, and Bob was there for part of the day.

It's a big hospital, with ICU capacity of 32, so the waiting room is large, and broken up into a couple of areas. There were several families hanging out in the back area, with stacks of jigsaw puzzles and coloring books for the kids, and bags of snack food. Many families were apparently living there--there were folded blankets and pillows at the ends of couches, which were accepted as meaning that those couches were "taken," i.e., to be used as beds during the night by the people who owned the bedding.

My sister met one young woman whose husband had been in ICU for over a month. She didn't have any family in town, but she said she'd been "adopted" by one of the large families who had also been there awhile. Kind of an interesting community, I thought. For sad reasons, of course, but everyone seemed to be mostly stoic and friendly, answering phones when the attendant was called away, bringing cookies and snacks to share.

The surgery (a quadruple bypass) took longer than we expected, and we passed the time by talking, walking (pacing), placing phone calls, going down to the cafeteria for meals, etc. It was a long day. We were able to go in and see Dad after surgery, but he hadn't woken up completely from the anesthesia by early evening. His nurse said that it might be another hour, so Mom decided we might as well go home.

When I hadn't heard anything by this morning, I called and talked to a nurse in ICU, who said that Daddy was doing well, that he had woken up, and was doing fine, and should be moved out of ICU and into a regular room sometime later today, which was a huge relief. Bob just called and said he's going to head over to the hospital and check on things, and see if my mom needs anything, which is also a relief, and a blessing.