A Long (but Not Bad) Day

Today was actually not half bad. Long! but not bad. I was able to get a fair amount of work done in between attending to Brendan (I probably have an hour left to do this evening, and I'll call it good for today), and I was able to make the phone calls I needed to make while Bren and I were walking to the litte deli one block from the OHSU medical offices in search of Doritos. And really, Brendan seemed to be semi-enjoying himself most of the time. But then ... I packed half the house! He especially liked the tram ride from the medical offices, up over the highway, to the hospital up on on the hill. And Mark's surgeon for next Wednesday is a pediatric surgeon (although Broberg will assist) and so our second waiting spell was in a room full of children who were intrigued with Brendan's board game and his Legos and who came over and "befriended" him without introduction!

Everything went fine with the introduction of the new medication. (We just had to stay there and have his BP monitored every half hour for four hours.) And the appointment with the surgeon apparently went well, although I wasn't able to go back with Mark because of Bren. Dr. Balaji moved his surgery a little later in the day though, because he has to do another surgery that day, too. We were going to have to leave here at 5 a.m., but Mark is more complicated than the other patient and so he's going to do Other Guy first so that he can devote the rest of the day to Mark. Also, while most people go home after several hours of observation, he's going to keep Mark overnight. This actually makes things MUCH simpler for me because a) I can get the kids off to school myself and don't have to try to find someone willing to spend the night here or come over before dawn, and b) I can probably come home earlier (again, to take care of kids) than I would have been able to otherwise. But that really depends a lot on how Mark is doing, post-procedure. And my mom has agreed to watch the boys after school at any rate, so rushing home really shouldn't be an issue.

The only hitch today was a minor one. We had to walk quite a ways to get from the doctor's office on the waterfront to the tram and from the tram to somebody that looked like they might know where we were supposed to go! and then from the information desk to--at last!--the surgeon's office. Part way there, Mark stopped suddenly, and I looked over and he was positively gray. Not just his face, but his hands and wrist, too. Even his arms looked discolored. I offered to get him a wheelchair, but he said, no, he would be fine. He just needed to rest. So we did ... for less than a minute! And then ... off he went! Although he did let me carry his bag after that...