her able hands

For your kind thoughts and good juju. Steve came through surgery. It turned out to be far more complicated than they anticipated, lots of rerouting blood vessels and arteries. His four-hour surgery took ten hours and he’ll be kept heavily sedated and intubated through today and maybe even tomorrow while the fluid levels in his body regulate. They expected him to gain between 15 and 20 pounds overnight from the IV and transfusions, lots of blood loss. One aneurism isn’t a complete fix and he may have to get more work done (a stint) in a few years.

But that’s the good news, the purchase of years. The surgeon said that had they not operated, and even one of the aneurisms blown, they would not have been able to save him.

When I got the news at 6:00, my body crashed and I realized that I had been holding every muscle as tight as possible. The headache that set in is thankfully gone this morning after a decent night’s sleep.

He’s got a long road ahead of him for recovery, but as my mother said last night, at least there’s a road.

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My stepfather, Steve, is having major surgery this morning to repair three aneurisms in his aorta, down by his kidneys and into his legs. All week I stifled the urge to call him and tell him all of the ways he’s been important to me and to who I have become because I didn’t want to frighten him more. I called, but kept it light. The words my grandmother said to my sister when she went to visit my grandfather just before he died–something like you’re making your grandfather feel like you’re saying goodbye! keeps playing in my head. Granted, my grandmother, well…I love her to pieces but she does seem to be missing the part of the brain or consciousness that helps filter the thoughts that pop into ones head, softening the blow.

So that thought stopped me. As did my need to focus on the positive. On a good outcome. Visualization and all that. But truth be told, I’m scared. It’s a very serious situation his body is in, just a couple of months after he offically retired. He’s truly been a father to me in ways my biodad hasn’t been able to be for some reason. Oh, that’s just a whole other blog with its own domain, that topic, www.herunablefather.com. Yeah. Anyway.

So if you’re the praying type, or if you light candles or sing songs or write names in a book, well, I sure would appreciate it and even though he likes to say it’s all bullshit, I think Steve would too.

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Hey! You should swing by Melanie Lynne Hauser’s joint to congratulate her! Why, you ask? Because her second Supermom novel, Supermom Saves the World is out!

I’m feeling like Supermom’s archnemesis lately. There’s so much juggling going on inside my head that I actually missed taking Ty to the open house at the high school last night. Even though it was on our calendar, and on the one I keep in my bag, and on the one I keep on my desk at work, and I had looked at all three several times during the day. My sincere apologies to Chris who had to deal with me shooting straight up in bed about an hour after we fell asleep, yelping “Shit! Dammit! Shit!” The best part is that while the open house was happening, I was soaking in a hot tub trying to relieve the massive knots in my shoulder from steam cleaning carpets all afternoon on Sunday, compounded by the stress of dealing with Ty and his suddenly horrific grade point average due to a dozen missing assignments.

Ah, well. Maybe I’ll develop superpowers and be able to bend the space-time continuum just enough to slip out of the tub, dry myself off and get us to the high school on time. Oh! Maybe if I go sit in the hot tub again! Well, I’m off to make a cup of coffee and to try to focus my attention on that for a half hour. But then I have to make lunches and get us out the door for another day on the merry-go-round.

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