So Dad is through the surgery and doing guardedly well, though he has a long, new road ahead...and thanks to a frequent-flyer ticket from my aunt, I'm down in Texas doing the driving for Mom, holding some hands, kissing his forehead everytime I leave the ICU, being the designated pray-er (except when the wonderful, loving Baptists show up and aren't afraid to pray in front of the M.Div. because they knew him 34 years ago when he lied in Children's Church about his mother being pregnant just to get attention), and trying not to cry every time I remember the phone call last night from a messenger for my Session (the board that runs the church) saying, "Sunday is taken care of. We all think you should stay with your family. We'll see you when we see you."

Feeling giddy enough to respond to others' entries, but not creative enough to write anything deep tonight. So this will have to do.

Reflections of the day....

2 Code Blues on the unit. Tried not to flinch and lifted my old chaplain's breath prayer while deflecting Dad's attention. Discovered the speakers in the family waiting room don't announce them, and the nearest speaker that does is two closed doors away. A manifestation of modern medicine's denial of human mortality?

Amazonian nurses rock! Nurse S could play the French teacher in the next Harry Potter film and she plays my father like a violin. Never has one so stubborn been manipulated so successfully by a giantess.

Some doctors' bedside manners are actually as bad as they are portrayed on ER...and some are just as good, too.

Peace...from the Bayou City.