From the super highway to the toilet...

Arriving at St. Marks hospital 2nd floor surgical waiting room last Wednesday morning, we found the room packed with people and dad and sister #6 (his chauffer for the day) sitting not in some remote corner like I would have been, but right in the middle of all the action... the superhighway. Also known as the direct path between two major hallways of the hospital. We asked dad why he chose these bank of chairs from all the chairs in the waiting room to sit us in for the next few days. His response? "Why not?" Some people you just don't argue with!

This is where we sat all day Wednesday and then again on Thursday morning before I left to come home, and again on Friday morning after I had returned (I enjoyed driving four hours home, visiting the family for six emotional hours, then driving four hours back in the middle of the night with a different sibling than I brought home. Who wouldn't?).

I tried to work on a project... reading a book... but as luck would have it... my sisters brought hand sewing and it's quite simple to sit and talk while you do hand sewing. Not so easy to sit and talk while you read a book. Thus, I didn't get much reading done. I knew I should have taken my laptop. I could have digi-scrapped and talked at the same time! But NO... I didn't put that much thought into things. Not even on the second trip back when I knew for sure I wouldn't get much reading done did I think about bringing my laptop. Of coarse, I left approximately five minutes after deciding to leave, so that could have had something to do with it.

Sister #6 got a lot of embroidering done on her blocks she is making for what will one day be a beautiful quilt. She became quite popular, too, as perfect strangers would stop and admire her work. At one point, we were downstairs in the cafeteria area when a hospital worker asked "how's the quilt coming?" Have you ever had someone ask "how's the book coming?"

By Friday afternoon, mom was finally released from the ICU and we gathered our belongings and made the trek to the third floor and waited for mom to come. I arrived to see sister #5 (the one I brought with me on the second trip) deep in conversation with someone who I just assumed she knew from somewhere. I asked her later who it was and she replied with something along the lines of "I don't know. We were just comparing sewing projects." What is it with the sewing, already??? Does nobody care which book I'm not reading? It's a really good one, too! I think. I'm only on page four.

We finally got mom into a room... it was small... very small... so small that we made sister #6 sit in the bathroom to do her sewing. The toilet made a good thread holder anyway. It was sure a lot quieter than being on the superhighway. I even got to read a few pages of my book.
By the way, mom will be home tomorrow. She has a long ride home to Idaho, though, so I hope she can handle it. I'm also on page 104 of my book now... but then I get more reading done here at home than at the hospital anyway.