The apparition of these faces in the crowd

Was stuck in a hospital waiting room for five hours.

My uncle went into the hospital earlier this week for some blockage in his lower end. For those of you keeping score at home, this is my dad's brother. The one who just divorced his wife a few years back and married the woman he was having the affair with. Sidebar: he and wife number four are in the process of getting a divorce.

Apparently, he had been doing better all this week. I haven't been in to see him because I've been going through the seventh circle of hell at the Playhouse with this damn concert this weekend. At about 8pm, I get a call from my dad saying that Uncle Mark is going into surgery. He blew a hole in his intestine from all the built up pressure. I ended up leaving rehearsal around 9:30 when I just couldn't stand it any longer. Went home, changed, and went down to the hospital with the folks.

Basically -- we wanted to be there for my aunt. I personally... couldn't do what she did tonight -- waiting all night for the man who committed adultery SEVERAL times to come out of surgery but none of us wanted to be alone. Particularly because Andy (my cousin and their son) refuses to even speak to his father. And Andy never came down all night. Which, hi, I don't care if you're fighting with someone. When there's a medical emergency like this, you put differences aside. Once he's out of the woods go back to hating him. But in this case where my uncle could have died from this? Yeah, really smart, Andy.

At about 12:30am he came out of surgery and the doctor talked to us. As soon as the words 'life threatening' were used, the four of us were deadly quiet. They ended up removing a large portion of his colon and they're still going to have to go in again and look at the blockage, but the doc said it didn't look or feel like cancer, and he thinks it's diverticulitis related. (Which, my Uncle has had that diagnosed for YEARS now). So they're going to let him heal before doing anything else. The good news was that he got into surgery before he could turn septic... which really would have been the kiss of death. Knowing that the drug that counters septic is about $10,000 a dose, it could have... been really not good. I think I'm still in shock over that whole bit.

Finally at about 2:30 am we were able to see him in the ICU. He's doing well (or as well as can be expected at the present).

It's... just been one helluva night.

Another before I forget wish:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY nassima!!! *SMOOCH*

I hope you have a wonderful day, hon. I have something in the works for you, but as my muses suck right now, I don't know if it'll be finished before the end of the day. *crosses fingers*


In other news, there will be a post-concert update... but the major news is that it didn't suck. HUZZAH.

And I will have mp3s in a week or so... as it usually takes about that long to get CDs from the recording studio. :)