Inlaw Heart Surgery

It is 4:55 now. I have taken to not sleeping late during the weekend because it makes staying up for work on Tuesday harder than it is. Today though there's another reason for me staying up.

My husband just went to bed to wake up at 6 so he can pick up his mom and sis and arrive at 7:30 for his aunt's open heart surgery, the same surgery at the same hospital where his dad's health started its long downward spiral that would end with his passing away in July 2005, two weeks after our engagement.

I didn't think it would be a good idea for him and his mom and sis to be there throughout his aunt's entire surgery. I mean his mom and sis -- when they visit my folks -- cannot face sitting in the same place they sat on their first visit to my folks' place for a formal proposal, back when his dad was of course still with them. To this day they can't look at the room; they will sit anywhere else, no matter how inconvenient, but not that room. My husband, after 3 years, still has a hard time not welling up when songs about fathers come on the radio. His dad was a good man, good to him and his sister and his mom. I remember when I was telling my grandma how worried I was that they weren't going to get over it, especially his mom, my grandma said a woman only has a hard time after her husband's death if he was exceptionally kind to her. I don't know about how true that statement is, but he certainly was very kind to his family and to many others. On their first visit to my folks' place he blew me away by commenting on the last thing anyone noticed if at all about my then-9-year-old brother, "He is overflowing with compassion." True. My little (not so little now) brother was and is a steady stream of kindness, teenage tantrums and all.

Something went wrong with my FIL's anesthesia and instead of the scheduled 4 hours his surgery went on for a little more than 10 whole hours. He was wheeled out to intensive care with an infection that would later require a correction surgery that would leave him in a coma for a week, and never the same man again for the following 6 or so years until his sudden death. It passed in a stupor for my MIL, SIL, and husband, but to this day they will go out of their way to avoid passing in front of that hospital, and pull all the stops trying to talk those scheduled to be admitted there out of it. The French Qasr Al Ainy has become the symbol of everything corrupt in their eyes, and not undeservingly: Last night my mom (a retired doctor) was schocked to hear about his aunt's choice of hospital, and tried explaining that it is infamous for its lousy aftercare. It's not my DH's aunt's choice, of course. Her surgeon only operates there.

I'm trying not to think of the other big concerns: his aunt's almost 80 if not past it; that coupled with her long list of ailments make it possible that she may not even make it. I'm asking everybody to keep us in their prayers. I hope tomorrow goes easily for everybody.