What a Week

What a week.
First the knitting knews:
Finished, blocked, shipped baby blanket(and girlie bibs) to great-niece. Now I have an excuse to make another pile of girlie bibs. Have another baby blanket on the needles, this one in multicolored cotton. And a stack of boy baby bibs. I am going to remain prepared for baby eruptions in the future, that's certain.

Now the week:
Tuesday started out like so. E-mail came at 6 am from my colleague at The Firm (how I shall refer to the pharmaceutical consulting firm I work for part-time; the medical education firm I write for shall be called MedEd). I saw it at 7:10 am when I returned from walking Rocky. By 7:15 colleague Jill and I were deep in a discussion. It seems that CEO of The Firm arranged a last-minute meeting for late Tuesday with a drug company to land an account analyzing a potential new cancer drug. Jill remember that this type of drug is pretty much what I worked on for the past decade.
Hence the early-morn call. DH walked in during the call,overheard what I was saying and promptly walked out, In his opinion, it was a bit early to discuss signal transduction in cancer and transcription factors.I would normally agree, but well, work I must now. Jill was on the road when we spoke; she telecommutes from Pittsburgh to NJ because her DH can't relocate and drives in when necessary). I was to create the analysis of the diseases and the therapy by noon. Not daunting when it's what I knew; not sure I could have pulled it off so quickly otherwise. By noon I created the presentation and slides, with reference articles.
Tuesday early afternoon comes another e-mail, from a brother in LA: father had transient ischemic attack in the morning, taken to the hospital, still in ER because no beds available. All vitals look good, but some tests need to be run in-patient. Reach brother mid-afternoon- still no bed but Dad is feeling better, well enough in fact that brother left to get a bite to eat (has diabetes) and run into the office for a bit (runs the 2nd largest network of convalescent/nursing homes in California). Will call when Dad has a room. Wait up to hear from LA until I fall asleep Tuesday night.
Wednesday morn get e-mail from brother: finally a room opened for Dad, and he's in room 5891; call at such and such a number. Call when I think it's a good time but it's not- Dad is being taken for tests but I tell his nurse-companion, whom I've met, I call back. Only Dad calls me! He sounds in good spirits and expects to be home by Thursday. Late Wednesday Jill calls- the presentation went well; they love what I did. Can we meet for breakfast Thursday? Sure, at my house, where we can have lovely muffins and Danish pastries from the kosher bakery plus DH's special Antigua de Guatamala coffee that he grinds himself.
Thursday 8 am Jill comes. It's the first time we've met in person, though we've spoken on the phone everyday for nearly 3 weeks now. We find we have a lot in common besides science: collies, pet birds (hers being a Quaker parrakeet that dances to the Hokey-Pokey), and so forth. Meeting ends at 11:30 as Jill heads back to Pittsburgh and I decide to work at home. Midafternoon I call Dad, see how he's doing, is he home yet.
Dad's still in hospital, in good spirits, loves telling me how much poking and prodding they did on him during the imaging the previous day. Then he says casually, "I just singed the consent form to put in a pacemaker. The cardiologist thinks I need regulated so I won't get attacks any more." He said it like you or I would say, "I think I'll run out and get a quart of milk." Me, quaking inside but not showing it a bit, ask Dad, "You trust ther cardiologist? You think it's the right thing to do?" Remember, Dad is nearly 88. "Oh sure," replies Dad. "He showed me the results and explained everything. They won't even put me to sleep, they'll do it under local with sedation and I'll go home the next day."
So that's today's agenda: Dad's surgery in LA. Personally, I think Dad will remain in hospital until Sunday. Brother thinks Dad should go into a rehab center (nice he owns a few, right?). We'll see.

Update:
So it turns out Dad's hemoglobin/hematocrit values were too low for the cardiologist to procede. Pacemaker placement post-poned until Monday, and I told Dad to eat lots of steak over the weekend.

One step at a time.