Dad Day One

We’re finally home, after a long, long day.  I’m so exhausted I can barely stand it.  We need to figure out how to get both the Butcher and me home for as little hassle as possible, which should be a fairly easy thing to figure out, but I swear to god, it’s like the most complex math problem possible.   Say you have two people who need to get to Nashville in a car and one needs to leave this weekend and the other can leave next weekend.  How do you get them both home for as cheap as possible?  I’ve decided, for starters, that I will not go home on Wednesday and try to drive back up here on Sunday so that the Butcher can drive home on Sunday and turn around and drive back up here to get me the next weekend.

But does he drive home this weekend and drive back up here to get me the next weekend or do we fly me home and, if so, how to get me to the airport?

I have no fucking idea, but we all drew various diagrams and stared and them and then finally gave up.

The first time we went in to see my dad, I about couldn’t stand it.  He was hooked up to a million tubes and wires and cords and had a tube down his throat and just wanted someone to wipe the gross stuff off his tongue, so I did, because that’s what you do.  It was all I could do to not just break down right there in the room, watching things leak out of him and drip into him and such.  But, somehow, miraculously, I held it together.

About an hour later, we went back in and they had him sitting up and the tube was out and he was talking.  I told him that his brother had called and he asked, “Uncle Blaine?” and the Butcher and I joked it off, because we couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.  The longer we were in the room, though, the more it became apparent that he was still very out of it.  He knew we were family, but I’m not sure he knew for certain who we were, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t remember that Uncle Blaine is dead.  That about tore my heart out.

And then, the third time we went in, I rubbed his head for a while and we talked and my mom told him the same thing she told him every time she went in and he nodded again, so maybe it works for them.  Then Mom said “I love you” and I said “I love you” and he looked at me and said “Do you really?” and I said, “I’m here, aren’t I?” and he said, “Then where’s my son-in-law?” and I laughed and he said, “How am I going to retire if you don’t give me a son-in-law?  A rich one?”  And that broke my heart, too, but for different reasons.

Dad Update

We’ve had three ministers, one aunt, two women I don’t know, and all of us take over the whole end of the waiting room and we’re all laughing and telling stories about my dad.

The Butcher just told me that Dad’s off the bypass, so I have to get back.  More later.

Waiting

I forgot to tell you the other four, which is the time we had to wake up this morning to get here.  They just took Dad back into surgery, but the nurse said that it’s going to be another forty-five minutes before they start.  Then she’ll call us when they cut him open, call us again, three hours later, when they take him off the heart-lung machine and then about an hour after that, we’ll hear from the doctor, and then we make our way up to the ICU waiting room, and wait some more for them to get him settled in there.

They warned us that he won’t really respond to us the first couple of times we see him in the ICU.

So, that’s what I know.

I don’t know how much access I’ll have to this computer, but I’ll update as I can.  Right now we’re waiting for my Aunt B. to get here and I’m hoping to send the Butcher for some pop.

Mom is crying, but I’m not, yet, because the Butcher is making fun of Mom for crying and I certainly don’t want him to make fun of me.

Ha, I guess it’s not as funny in writing as it seems to me right now.

Anyway, I’m hoping we can soon go in search of breakfast.

Does anyone know if Bruce Nemerov won a Grammy?