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Monday I woke up, called my dad and we agreed I should go do a little something. The surgery wasn’t scheduled until late afternoon and he was in fine fettle. From the sound of things, he’d have a routine surgery to place a rod & pin, then get kicked out of the hospital by the end of the week. Even better news was that he didn’t break his hip but rather his femur. Much less recovery time. And he was busy charming the nurses with his still glittery purple mohawk.

I ended up eating breakfast on the Boardwalk and walked over to EPCOT to ride Soarin’. I can transfer myself just fine to the ride seat but I did get a little help from the guest next to me (a lady from Texas) in fastening my seatbelt. I had her and her family looking for the hidden Mickeys during the ride. By the time I left, I called Dad. I guess we were both missing each other by then.

So I cut back out of EPCOT and arrived at the hospital for lunchtime.

Things were supposed to go smoothly that day. His surgery was set for 4pm. He’d been given pain meds and was NPO (no food allowed) since early morning. He had a large private room overlooking Seaworld and Marriott’s Grande Vista (where we had just stayed). I even talked to his social worker Patricia who told us how the recovery route usually went… up walking by the day after, no cast, and release from the hospital by Thursday. At the time, our biggest concern was how I’d manage shifting over from Boardwalk to Saratoga Springs resorts on Wednesday. And my siblings started the grand debate of how they’d handle getting Dad home.

But then the surgery was pushed to 6pm. Then 6:30. Then finally 7:30pm. All the while the sun went down and Dad’s pain meds wore off. In retrospect I should have worried more. Instead I just kept asking the nurse when the surgeon was coming and what the delay was. Dad’s spirits remained high despite it all. He wanted to be a good patient and not complain. And perhaps this is a lesson he needed to learn. Good patients aren’t silent about their concerns but make sure their care is addressed properly.

When they finally took him down to surgery, I waited with all the others in the Surgical Waiting Room. Fox News was on so I occupied myself with that. They told us that the operation would take about an hour so I was looking for the good word around 8:30pm. In the meantime, it got very cold down on the 2nd floor. So cold that all the occupants of the waiting room started talking about it. It was downright freezing.

Then came a man in scrubs calling out my name. He had paperwork in his hand and I thought he was just telling me that the surgery went as planned. Instead, the paperwork turned out to be my dad’s EKG. The lines were jumping all over the place. The man, his anesthesiologist, explained that when they went to start the anesthesia just now, my dad’s heart began to race. He went into Atrial Fibulation (A-Fib) and they called off the surgery before he had a heart attack. Now he’d have to go back upstairs and be re-evaluated by the cardiologist. The surgeon was on his way from home (wait, he wasn’t even here yet?!) and would stop in to see me. That never did happen as the surgeon (Dr. Nathan Hill) popped in to tell my dad the surgery was off, shrugged and walked away.

I waited for my dad and walked him back up to his private room on the 6th floor. The Ravens were playing Monday night football so we tried to calm ourselves down by switching that on. Mostly we tried to understand what went wrong.

Dad explained that he was freezing in the surgery room too. And here he was only dressed in a paper thin hospital gown. He was getting chills but didn’t want to bother the staff (who were busy figuring out something on the computer) with his complaint. And he had to go to the bathroom. So without food or pain medicine he laid in this bed waiting and waiting for them to do something. His energy level is never great at night traditionally and with the stress of the afternoon, well no wonder things went awry.

Next we know, the nurses came back to tell him the cardiologist ordered a new IV medication to calm his heart and that be transferring him to a different floor. The 6th floor doesn’t have the staff qualified to monitor his heart. So he went down to the 4th floor where he lost his private corner room with the view and exchanged it for a shared room with a view of the roof.

Fortunately, his heart did quickly start calming down again. And they gave him pain meds as well as real food.

I got back to BWV around midnight-1am. Simon was waiting for me along with Helen the Housekeeper. I guess the trauma of the day must of shown on my face because they instantly huddled around me as I came through the door. They heard my story of woes and Helen walked me back to my room to tuck me in for the night.