My parents and I got Bill to St. Francis this morning at 5:15am. We left him at the doors of the operating room a little before 7:00am. At about 12:45pm, his doctor came to tell us that the operation had gone very well. He bypassed two blockages in his left anterior descending artery and was pleased with the result.

Mom and I saw him in his room in the Intensive Care Unit -- twice. He was asleep both times. There's a little blood draining from his chest cavity, and the doctor will keep him asleep in case they have to go back in to close something up. He doesn't think they'll have to, but he's not taking any chances. The second time we saw him, the attending nurse said that the bleeding had pretty much stopped.

In spite of still being under a general anesthetic, having a respirator breathing for him, and having a couple 1cm tubes coming out of his chest, he looked pretty good. His color was good, his heart rate was moderate, and his heart rhythm is regular.

I'll report back with more news later.

Thank you for all of the love and support you've given Bill over the last month. It was very hard for me to be half a world away while all of this was happening. (I returned home Wednesday afternoon.) I know it made this whole ordeal a lot easier for Bill knowing that he has so many friends who care about him.

Oh. If you're wondering why I'm making this post today, when his operation was scheduled for yesterday, it's because they called Wednesday morning to reschedule the operation for today. Apparently there was someone in very bad shape who needed the operating room, and they had to "bump" Bill to today. In one way, it was too bad. He was mentally ready for it to happen yesterday, and the re-scheduling gave him an extra day of anxiety. In another way it was nice. It gave the two of us and my parents a day together before the operation that we wouldn't have had otherwise. We had a lazy day, including a nice picnic lunch at Soapstone Mountain.