I finally find myself with a little bit of time tonight, so I’m going to fill you all in on what is going on around here.

It all started Monday of last week when Rocky was in San Francisco for VSLive!.  He started feeling sick (no details, it’s better this way).    Sometime between midnight and Tuesday morning, his umbilical hernia (which I’ve been nagging him to get fixed) popped out, and he was sick AND in agonizing pain.

The hotel staff drove him to the nearest hospital ER, where he was treated for flu (given medicine to alleviate the symptoms we’re not talking about) and sent back to his hotel room.  He spent the rest of his time in SF in his hotel room sick as a dog, and came home early on Thursday night.

I picked him up at the airport and brought him home, gave him some chicken broth (free range organic) and sent him to bed.

Friday morning he informed me that he needed a doctor’s appointment, because he couldn’t stand being this sick any longer.  I thought:

“You’ve got the flu, what are they going to do?” but made the appointment anyway.  I took him to the doctor later that day, and lo and behold, under the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent lights of the clinic, he looked yellow.

The doctor said; “I think you have hepatitis.  Drive to the ER.  I will call ahead and have them waiting for you.”

I called Sue, and she came right down to sit with the boys for the night.

We got to the ER, and they immediately got him a bed and ran a bajillion blood tests and did a sonogram, which revealed a very large gall stone in his gall bladder.

“It’ll have to come out” said the radiologist.  The Internal Medicine specialist agreed, and told them to find Rocky a bed. 

Then we waited for six hours while they worked on that.  During that time, we heard a poor woman having a psychotic episode, a senile old man screaming for some woman that nobody knew who she was…she’d probably been dead for years, and a number of really uncomfortable sounding babies.

After they put the psycho woman in restraints, a nurse came in to apologize for the noise the woman was making.

“She can’t help it.” We responded.

She stopped in her tracks just for the briefest second to look at us and said “No, she can’t but most people don’t realize that.”

I think that’s really sad.  How can you listen to someone losing their mind in the next room and summon only annoyance at them?  I don’t think that could possibly be true.  Some people might express their feelings as annoyance…but they CAN’T be that callous, can they?

Rocky was only allowed to eat a couple of ice chips to ease the dryness in his mouth, and those he was ordered to keep to a minimum.

Finally, at one o’clock, we got Rocky ensconced in a real live hospital room, and I went home.  I got home at 2:00AM. Sat. morning, slept for four hours, and then went back to the hospital to be with Rocky when he met with his surgeon.  She seemed to be bright as a penny, and we were filled with confidence.  It turned out to be well placed.  She explained everything to us, each decision had a reasonable explanation.  She answered questions smoothly, confidently, and extemporaneously.  Also, she was going to fix the hernia as part of the gall bladder surgery.

There was a delay getting Rocky into the operating room.  His surgery started an hour and a half late.  When they finally wheeled him away, I called Rick, and he came down and relieved Sue of her Watcher duties.  I took the opportunity to call a few family and friends, and then fell asleep.

Fortunately, the hospital had given me a pager something like what they give you when you are waiting for a table in some restaurants.  It went off in a frantically cheery burst of “music” when Rocky’s surgery was completed, so I was able to take a minute or two to get all of the different areas of my brain rounded up and stampeding in the same direction by the time Dr. Nowak was in front of me telling me that the surgery was a complete success…

…with two problems.  The stone was REALLY big, and the gall bladder was REALLY infected.  She didn’t think he’d be getting out of the hospital before Monday, but she had very high hopes for his complete recovery.

I waited until Rocky was comfortably set up in his room, went back home and told Rick he could take off, and then went back to the hospital to make sure Rocky was doing alright.  I don’t remember arriving back home.

The next couple of days are a blur; running back and forth between the hospital and home trying to take care of everyone...

I remember a nurse names Leo, whose accent sounded West African, who was very nice, thoughtful, thorough and knowledgeable.  There was a guy named Dan in the ER who lifted our spirits while delivering Rocky to the sonogram room…lots and lots of wonderful, caring professional staff in the hospital.

Rocky has a bit of an infection from the gallbladder problem.  He’s being held at the hospital until they get him over that.  He was supposed to come home today.  They say he will come home tomorrow…

…we shall see.

But Rocky got tons of calls, and well-wishes.  EVERY person I called to tell about this offered their help and pretty much wrote me a blank check, figuratively speaking.  My ShiFu and his wife stopped by to visit Rocky in the hospital.  He has flowers and cards, and lots and lots of e-mails to answer wishing him well.

I went shopping today.  The next couple of days after he comes home will consist of massive spoilage of the Rocky person.

I just hope that he really comes home tomorrow.