A day in the life of the sick.

I'm not sick.
My dad is. I woke up early and drove over to my parents house yesterday morning. I arrived at 3:30 am please note, that's in bold because that's way too early to be doing anything. We left from their house to head towards the hospital where dad was to get a biopsy. Or a bibopsy if I could quote a movie... I can't remember which movie at the moment, but I'm pretty sure I liked it. Anyway, we arrive at the hospital at 5:45am, (still too early) and he's suppose to be there at 6am. We're doing good. We wait, and finally about 6am they open the doors to the day surgery unit and we all (there's a whole group of other families doing exactly what we're doing) trudge in. We all wait in line at the reception desk where a nice lady seperates the men from their wives. She sends the men to the left for 'preparing' and the families to the right for waiting. I'd like to be able to tell you I gained a whole new perspective on the term 'wait' and somehow applied it to waiting on the Lord, but I'm afraid I can't. Waiting, is something that no one wants to do, but you just have to sit down and the time will pass. Anyway, let's keep going though.
I discovered the VA Hospital has it's own version of wal-mart inside. I didn't actually buy anything there except my mom and I both pitched in to buy a portable radio with ear pieces so dad could lie there and 'wait' with talk radio on. I also discovered, that people with problems, are the most helpful to other people with problems. More helpful than the staff ever could be, were all the other people milling around that had also spent way too much time in this hospital. They told us how to get everything from food to medicine, radios to valuable artwork. Most important, everyone we asked tried to help us find our car. Which at some point disappeared in the vast recesses of the parking lot. In a way, I also learned how our brain decides things are valuable and holds onto them. While my brain was obsessed with the fact that we were parked at Gen. parking #20, and if I could only somehow find that, we'd find the car...my mom remembered that we came in the door with the 'crinkles'. I'm pretty sure more than a few people thought we were insane as I asked people if they knew anything about the bermuda triangle also known as Gen Parking #20, and my mom asked where the 'crinkle' doors were. In the end, as we waited 2 and a half hours for a 30 minute 'quick' proceedure, we discovered where the true test was.
We didn't get released until 6pm, and didn't get home until 9pm. When they say 'day surgery' I believe the name was meant to warn us that it would be 'ALL day'. Lessons learned I guess. I'm glad it's over. Mostly, I'm glad that I was able to drive them home safely. I never would of lived it down if I'd wrecked their car.