what a week...

Monday night, at 9:22pm, I received a phone call from my mother-in-law. A woman who is always in bed by eight. I knew by the way Allie said "it's Grandma", that something was wrong. She had just gotten back from taken my father-in-law in to the emergency room. He wasn't feeling well, and by the time he arrived, he was having a heart attack. A quadruple bypass was scheduled for 7am the next morning. I told the kids - William cried, as it began bringing back thoughts of my own mother, who died 6 days before Will's 9th birthday. We prayed for Grandpa, and Grandma, and the doctors.

The hardest part was waiting for Ken to come home. I didn't know what to say to him, I didn't know how to tell him. We stayed awake and talked until after 1am. And we were up at 5 to get ready to go to the hospital. We got the kids up and ready for school early, and were in the waiting room by 6:35. Ralph went into surgery at 7:30, and didn't get done until 3pm. It was a long day in that waiting room.

I've heard of people having bypass. It seems pretty common. But because of all the medical shows on tv, I think it was too easy to picture what was happening. At 10:10 he went on bypass. His heart was basically stopped so they could work on it. A machine was pumping his blood. At that time, they said 2-3 hours. When 1 came and went, as did 2, it became quiet and uncomfortable. But the call came at 2:30 that he was off bypass, and they were closing him up.

Went to see him last night - the surgery had no complications, he's progressing. But it was the first time in critical unit since my mom died there. It's not a place I like to go. It was really hard. And seeing my big, strong, bull-headed father in law laying there unresponsive, with tubes and monitors all over the place, was horrible. I'm really hoping that tonight some of the tubes are gone. I need to get the kids up there, especially for Ralph. He lives for his grandkids and seeing them will be just what he needs after what he's been through.

We all have a long road ahead.