Hospital Trips and Surgery

The girls are finally asleep at the same time, and Paul is still at work, so I am (as very rarely happens) downstairs by myself, watching a movie (and typing a post!) and trying to get up the motivation to get on the exercise bike and pedal for forty five minutes.

I've been checking in every hour or so with my mom, who is sitting in the waiting room at the ER where my grandpa is being seen again for stomach problems (at least we think that's it). They seem to think he is going to get to come home tonight, but we've discovered over the years that it's better to go in sooner rather than later, which will hopefully avert a longer stay.

The last phone conversation I had, a few minutes ago, didn't paint a very pretty picture of the ER. It was very loud in the background as mom described a scene that included a man with a severed artery that was wrapped up, but that would spurt blood across the room if he let the pressure off of it, and a woman with a severe break in her ankle. The people who had been in the waiting room the longest had been waiting for three hours, and anytime they nearly made it past the waiting room, another ambulance would pull up and unload someone. Before getting off the phone I heard my mom trying to convince the woman with the badly deformed ankle to stay, instead of giving up and going home for the night. The next nearest hospital is over an hour away. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night for mom (and grandma and grandpa, although I think they're probably already in their own room).

So if you have an extra minute tonight, offer up a few prayers for the people waiting to be seen by the overworked hospital staff, and for the overworked doctor's who are trying to make sure everyone who needs to be seen is cared for.

And tomorrow afternoon Paul goes in for his knee surgery! At least he's taken five days off of work to recover. He should get a lot of studying in this week.

Now for the bike...

Update: Grandpa is home from the hospital!