Months later Amy had some wicked stomach pains. Another ultrasound leads to the comment from the tech, "My! You are an over-achiever..." Call her chock-full-o-stones. You know it's not good when you only have to wait for a few seconds for the doc to come in. He was concerned enough to send Amy downtown to see a surgeon that night!

The surgeon said Amy's gall baldder was too bad to operate that day, but not bad enough to operate that day. Turns out the inflamation that was causing Amy so much pain made the surgery a little dicier than it had to be, but wasn't so bad to justify that added risk. So drugs, drugs, and more drugs. (Oh yeah, and a little side trip to the ER for a sweet bit of fevering as well.)

Three weeks after that first trip downtown it was finally time to get that blasted little gall bladder out. In a surprising turn of events, we got a call early on surgery day to hear that the doc was running ahead of schedule. If we could come down early that'd be great. Whoa! First time for everything.

We scrambled to put together all our gear and the girls. Amy's parents met us in Issaquah at the Community Center/Toddler Time where we swapped the kids for a Frappacino and their carseat-free Explorer. (Sounded like a good trade to me, too.)

We arrived at about 10:30am and Amy was fast-tracked into the privileged areas of the hospital and I found myself in a crowded, noisy waiting room. Luckily, I had my PowerBook and an urge to tinker with moosefish.com so I occupied myself for a couple of hours.

Katherine and Paul showed up rather unexpectedly around 1pm. Kitty was in for her weekly chemo treatment and Paul was there because he's a good guy. It was the third anniversary of their wedding, but the hospital was the venue of their celebration. (Katherine looked really good and not at all like she describes herself. Paul looks a little goofy with his recently-shorn head.)

Shortly after my visitors left the doc came out to tell me everything was fine. I really liked her approach. "Hi. Amy's fine. I'm Dr. blah blah blah." I hadn't really worried much, but reassurance from the doctor was much appreciated. Amy had created a bundle of stones. Most were pretty small, run-of-the-mill gall stones, but there were about five that were the size of Altoids. Ouch.

Since I was still about an hour from being able to visit Amy in the recovery room I figured I'd go in search of Katherine and company. I tried the second floor of the hospital, but there wasn't a second floor. I tried the 12th floor, in accordance with a directory, but there was no sign of anything happening there. Eventually I found them in a different building. I visited for what seemed too short a time, but I didn't know if the "pager" I had been given would work so far from the surgery unit and didn't want to risk being late.

I was finally let in to see Amy at about 2:45pm. She was vaguely aware I was there, I think, but held my hand for a bit. Over the next hour or so Amy regained her senses and had some juice and crackers and a few drugs. I got the boot to work on some paperwork and get some lunch, but returned in time to find they were keen to get Amy out of bed. She hardly seemed ready to go, but we got her disconnected from the monitors and dressed.

While we were waiting for transport Amy brought up her take-home drugs. Or lack thereof. We had both assumed the other had a bottle of pills in a pocket, but in reality neither of us did. Amy asked the transport guy and he asked a nurse and she called a doctor.

Suddenly, Dr. Tom came in. Dr. Tom was one of the surgeons who had seen Amy when she was in the ER and had a great bedside manner in spite of being a cutter. He joked with a us a bit ("You're not going to sell these, are you?" "Yes, to my second grade students.") while writing the prescription. He even admitted he was the one that had extracted the gall bladder. Huh. Weren't we assured that even though there would be residents in attendance it would be the main doctor who would do the procedure? Hmph.

Dr. Tom also told us Amy had a "stubby" septic duct or whatever it was really called.

Huh-huh. Stubby.

We wished Tom good luck on his plans to elope next Saturday and headed home. Well... almost to home. We did have to stop for a Slurpee.

At home we found Clara playing in the back yard with Nana and Papa. Clara was informed that Mommy wasn't feeling well, had lots of owies, and Clara couldn't do much more than blow kisses at Mommy. That worked for a while, but after dinner and after Amy's parents had left Clara did nearly jump on Amy's belly. We intercepted her and I gave her a stern talking to that must have made quiet an impression because Clara got all quiet and pouty. Sometimes being a Daddy sucks.

Now Amy's swaddled in bed and looking forward to four days of recovery while I distract Clara and Lilly as best I can.

Thanks to everyone that has called and emailed with support. Sorry we haven't called everyone back, but there you go. She's doing well and we don't need for anything. When we figure out what we need, we'll put out the call.