Monday, April 21, 2008

What a Day!

It began at 3:30 this morning when my alarm went off. I jumped in the shower and was dressed and in the kitchen pouring myself a cup of coffee by 3:45. Then I put on my make-up and dressed mom, did her make-up, and tried to tame her hair. Sis showed up at 4:20, and she and Dad headed out the door by 4:30.

Mom and I were right behind, but Mom moves slowly and getting her in the car is quite an accomplishment. I also had to wrangle their cat, Princess, who really wanted to go outside this morning.

I was driving Dad's car because it is easier for Mom to get into and out of than my small SUV or Sis' Expedition. So I hit the road around 4:45, driving dark, winding roads blind because the interior lights would not go off in the Buick. I pulled over to pull out the owner's manual but Mom was fumbling around in the glove box for it already. She really did not want to surrender the manual, and she wanted me to just keep going.

So I drove to the hospital with all of the interior lights on. I told my mother that if I couldn't figure out how to turn the lights off when we got there, I would send my brother-in-law to the Buick dealership at 7:00 when the service department opened.

"Your Daddy can fix it!" was her response.

My blood pressure shot up and I explained to Mom that there was no point in exciting Dad right before he was to have a procedure. As we pulled up, Dad and Sis were waiting for us. I told Mom to NOT say a word about the lights to Dad and unloaded her with them. I parked the car, pulled out the owner's manual, and found the instructions for turning off the interior lights.

By then it was 5:30.

I entered the hospital and was met by Sis, who told me the first words out of Mom's mouth were "Brenda will be in as soon as she figures out how to turn of the lights in the car. We drove all the way over here with them on."

They took Dad to surgery around 6:15. We moved to the surgical waiting room and were given a beeper. Once the procedure was over, we were beeped. We were heading to meet the doctor, but Mom is incredibly slow, so he met us. He explained that the procedure went "great" and that Dad should be able to go home in a couple of hours.

Seriously. We were home by 11:15. I fixed a simple lunch and then we all crashed for a while. I got a 40 minute nap.

I made Parmesan chicken and a salad for dinner. And I baked a cake. I'm almost ready to frost it. Yellow cake with peanut butter frosting. And I'll probably do at least one load of laundry before I head off to bed.

I'm hear for at least another day, just to make sure Dad doesn't try to overdo. Take my word for it, I'm tired!

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