St Charles

So here we are in the St Charles waiting room yet again. This is a strange thing for our family - we've never been a family who visits doctors often nor have we spent much time in hospitals. That changed a bit about a year ago. My Mom went into the hospital in January of 2007 with some chest pain - spent over a week, underwent numerous tests and they found nothing and discharged her. Then in the weeks leading up to Jude's birth in April, I was in the hospital a couple times a week for Jude monitoring and then of course the 60 hours of labour and 6 days in the hospital when he was born. When Jude was almost 10 weeks old, Colin had his appendix removed for the first time and spent a couple of days in the hospital. Less than a week later he was back with massive infection, had to have the rest of his appendix (they forgot some) removed and spent over a week in the hospital. Now, here we are again. Mom is having her gall bladder removed - she met with the surgeon yesterday and they decided to get that sucker out of there. Hopefully it will bring relief - it's been causing her trouble for almost 25 years!

Anyway, it's just strange to have spent so much time in the hospital when, for years, we have kept our distance. It's interesting watching people, all of us waiting for news of those we love. Praying for guidance for the doctors, watching each other, passing the time, eating in the cafeteria (which is actually quite nice here) and watching the door for the doctor or the nurse, someone who will let us know that the surgery is done, or that we'll get to leave soon, or that more tests are needed. I have serious issues with worry as well which doesn't help, but that's a subject for another day.

Speaking of which, the surgeon just came out and said that all is well - everything went as it should and Mom is in recovery. Sweet relief. Now we wait for a while longer in this next phase.

On a side note, Jude is such a trooper - he was so good when his Dad was here and now he's being awesome for Grandma too. Apart from not wanting to take a nap - but that's par for the course.