Work Continues, then Stops

The past week here in Point Roberts has been a continued work party, with Ed's daughters, Mia and Annika, coming respectively from Michigan and California to spend four days with paint brushes in their hands, mostly.  Ed worked alongside them much of the time, and a lot of progress on the Orchard House continues to be made.  Next comes flooring.  Thank you, Mia!  Thank you, Annika!  It was great to have you here and to have you be part of this building project with your dad. 

The flooring will get started while Ed is in the hospital, which will begin very early Wednesday morning.  He got his most recent, pre-operative blood test results back today and his iron levels are much improved.  We could tell that from his color and his improved energy, but now we have the technical confirmation.  What was 7.4 is now become 11.0.

Because his surgery check in is at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, we will drive down to Bellingham tomorrow afternoon and get us and me settled in a place next door to the hospital where the St. Francis Assisted Living Center also rents rooms to family members of people who are hospitalized.  I've set myself up for staying down there the full period of hospitalization (maybe 5 days?), but they are flexible about length of stay.  So, if I feel that coming back to Point Roberts each night would work, I can still do that.  (It's about a 90 60  minute drive each way.)

My friend from bioethics days, Corrine Bayley, will be meeting us Tuesday evening in order to hold me up on Wednesday.  The surgery is scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m., and last about 90 minutes.  As soon as the docs tell me something, I'll try to get a post up on this blog, even if only the highlights.  My younger daughter tells me that at the hospital in Cape Girardeau, MO, they have wi-fi everywhere.  That's something of a change since I was last in a hospital overnight (about 45 years ago).  I expect Bellingham's St. Joseph's Hospital will rise to that standard and I'll have our new laptop.

This morning, we saw off Martin Shapiro, our long-time friend from UCLA Medical School, who came by for a brief overnight visit with his son.  They'd come up to see a few Olympic events.  It was a real pleasure to see Martin at this particular time, of course.  He offered reassurance and advice and in general delighted us.  After they left, Ed took an hour-long nap, and had lunch.  And now, at this very moment, Ed is driving to Home Depot in Richmond, B.C., to pick up slate counter stones for the kitchen and linoleum tiles for the new bathroom, for the work that comes after the flooring.  Maybe a movie tonight, a hoped-for good night's sleep (I had a dream a couple of nights ago in which I was packing up all the bad thoughts in a box so I could put them in the trash), and then off we go.