And another thing...

Success

This is a long story, so I am putting the pictures in thumbnail so you can view them larger or not, it's up to you.

My sister's surgery is over. Turns out they could not repair the valve to the surgeons satisfaction so he replaced the valve.

Her husband and I went up the day before since the surgery would be early the next morning.

So, the first thing my sister wants to do is go out for a smoke. We gather up a bunch of stuff she wants us to take and we head down to the car.
Unfortunately, Hubby has locked the keys inside.
As you can see, he is not all that upset about it,
and after 5 minutes he is in.
Back up to the room and my sister is getting ready, packing up her shit,
showering and taking off jewelry and nail polish.
Only my sister would curl her hair for open heart surgery.

While she was in the bath, we decided to have some fun with her. She was talking morbid outside, about what to do if she dies. Who gets what, that sort of thing. At the foot of her bed there is a cork board and a note board.

We thought this was hilarious. I don't' think her roommate did though.

So, we leave at around midnight to get a room. I suggested Holiday Inn, since it was just down the street and hey, I might be called upon to assist in the surgery. "I'm not a surgeon, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night." I swear I am going to use that line one day in my real life. But this trip, it never came up.

The parking structure was a fun time, a sardine can for cars. The Hubby is one of those guys who is never wrong when it comes to parking and driving. He was still smarting from the locking the keys in the car thing when I mentioned that the parking spot he was eyeing was too small. So, of course, he had to prove me wrong. He got in the space, all the while I am saying, "Don, I am telling you the space is too small." I am sure the car will fit, I was thinking ahead to actually exiting the car.

"Just let me try it, I think we will fit." And he was right, we fit. And if we were planning on sleeping in the car it would have been fine, but we were crammed into a space with a cement pillar on one side and a fancy car on the other with about 2 inches on either side. He looks at me like he has proven the theory of relativity.

"Perfect, Einstein, but I can't open the door."

"Just try it, you can squeeze out." I just looked at him. "Are you on crack? I am a fat chick, I need the door to open all the way." The lightbulb goes off and he sees my point. So, now we have to get out of the sardine can, and get turned around so we can continue into the depths of the parking structure and find another more adequate space. This is easier said than done and the Hubby does not do slow and easy. He proceeds to back out too fast and promptly takes the mirror off the car. "I meant to do that, I have collapsing mirrors, I was just testing them." I say nothing.

He gets out of the space, but now we are facing the wrong way to go down to the next level. He is smarting now, and of course he meant to do this too. He is the reverse king, so we head down through the sardine can, BACKWARDS. I wish I had pictures for this, because I had my eyes closed the whole time.

Luckily, I am in one piece and we get to the hotel room. Not a bad room, but 165 bucks was a bit much for 5 hours. We were back at the hospital at 5:30am. I couldn't sleep.


Back to the hospital, they prep her for surgery.

First the morphine, she loved that. She started talking some pretty good shit. "Tell Linda, I want my skates back. Can you get them sharpened for me?"

"Well, it's only 3 months before the rinks open, I hope I have time."

Linda has had these skates for a couple of years, we didn't even know she knew where they were but this was important information, according to my sister. Then as they wheel her into the operating room, she reaches for me, motions me to come closer so she can whisper in my ear. Her final words, "If I die, tell Linda she can keep the skates." Not exactly 'rosebud' but it will have to do.

I think I will cut this off here, next post I will cover post-op. But in a nutshell everything was fine.