AUSTIN, Texas, Apr. 19, 2005 — I wake up around 4:30 and hear Dad. He's up and reading. He just needs a little help to finish getting ready. I make coffee for me (he has had his pills with a swallow of water, all he's allowed) and take a shower. I realize I've never showered in this house. I get ready and help him get ready and take him out to the van in the wheelchair and put him in. I put the travel chair in the van just in case but I'm hoping to get the hospital wheelchair.

It's about 5:30. There are no people on Mopac. No surprise there.

We get to the hospital. They have a valet for surgery check-in and will keep your car for twenty-four hours for three dollars right up front. The valet runs and gets a hospital wheelchair for me, too.

Inside they make me fill out the very paperwork I did on Friday. They give me one of those 'your table is ready' types of pagers. When I finish someone calls us back. They make copies of the medical power of attorney and the directive to physicians. They bustle about. A nurse comes in holding the paperwork I did on Friday and the one I just did.

"There are two of these," she says with just a touch of accusation.

"Yeah, they made me do another just now."

"You should have told them that you'd already done it." Yeah, that would work.

Dad gets into the gown garb with some help, is given a couple of pills that I can't figure out. The anesthesiologist comes in but gets a cell phone call and leaves. This disconcerts the nurse who thinks he should have started an IV. But they finally take him away and I go to the waiting room.

I go put Dad's cane and bag of clothes in the car. I go to the bathroom and get coffee. And I wait. A friend of mine joins me in the waiting. We talk. My pager goes off around 10:30. The surgeon says everything seems fine, the xrays seem fine. He says he thinks that he'll have a lot of relief. The desk says to hold the pager and they will set it off when he's in a room.

When the pager goes off they give us a room number. We wait in the room and someone comes and says we are in the wrong room. Another room is suggested and the nurse's station says it's yet another. And yes he shows up. He seems to be doing fine. We step out while he transfers from the gurney. Apparently he helps with this with no particular pain. The nurse says he has to have the head of the bed no higher than thirty degrees until five. He is hungry. She says it will have to be ice chips, then juice. But relents and gives him ice chips, juice and graham crackers and then further relents and orders him a meal. He eats it with his head down like that. Us cutting stuff up. The aide starts to crank the bed up but we stop her. I guess the cement is supposed to be hardening. Hmm.

When he is finished eating, my friend and I go to 34th St. Cafe and eat, discussing anything but Dad. I'm worried although his spirits are good and he says it didn't hurt getting in bed or lying there. But he didn't hurt when he was still before. My friend leaves.

I call a friend to get Dad's mail, put out the garbage. FFP has an engagement so she says she'll come have dinner.

At five exactly, his eyes on the clock, Dad calls a nurse to 'witness' him sitting on the side of the bed. He says it doesn't hurt.

We wait around for his food, watching TV. The Catholics have a new pope. I am joking about it with Dad and then decide I might be offending the Daughters of Charity who run the hospital. Dad points out the crucifix on the wall.

I go outside and see that others have had food. I ask someone but they look at me like I have two heads. I go back to the room and ring the nurse's station and tell them he didn't get food. "We ordered a tray," they say.

My friend calls that she's nearby and I go over and we eat at Santa Rita. I go back and go all the way to the garage in back to retrieve my keys. (The valet isn't out there after seven. But it is cool to be parked right in front all day.) I get Dad's stuff and take it to the room for the morning.

He has finally had food, but only after having the nurse visit and telling her one more time that he didn't get anything. She also doesn't have one of his pills because it wasn't ordered. It is a blood pressure pill. They will worry about his blood pressure all night. Duh. He said he'd walked a few steps, pushing his tray table for support.

I am dead. I go home and sink into a funk in front of the TV. He'll he out tomorrow. Maybe he'll be able to walk more. Without pain. Must get some sleep myself.