I’m good at waiting. I’m so good at it that I tell people I’m freakishly patient.

This week I have had to put my money where my mouth is.

My mother and my stepfather have been in two different hospitals in one town where neither me nor my brother were.

He went to the hospital on Sunday, and Monday morning she had chest pains, so she went to the ER, where they kept her “overnight for observations.”

It’s now Friday and yesterday they brought her by ambulance to Macon for two stents in her heart.

I packed a bag in a hurry and called Jennifer to come get m’dawg and got down here as fast as I could. I expected that when I got here, she would actually be getting her stents, but that’s not how it’s all going down.

I also expected that she’d be released today and I’d be taking her back to Dublin and springing Bill, because he is Done With The Hospital.

Instead they admitted her to the CICU and scheduled her for this afternoon for another cath, where they may or may not put in the stents.

It was nice staying in the posh and tony Marriott last night, but I want to go home. I want her in a hospital where I know people, where they are known for being cardiac whiz kids.

Which is not to say that they’re not perfectly nice here, because they are, and they are taking very good care of her, aside from I just had to ask a nurse to change gloves. He said he’d just put them on, and I asked how many minutes he’d put them on before wiping his nose.

We spent hours in the room this morning, waiting, her asking the same questions over and over again, me answering them. She’s told me fifteen times (I counted) that she’s not nervous, but maybe she should be.

I’m not nervous either and maybe I should be, but it’s just not time to worry.

On a more fascinating note, there’s a woman here in the cardiac waiting room who’s dipping.

I’m so hungry, I might have to eat my emergency orange.