Whew...

This has been the longest six days of my life, I swear.

It all started with the end of my first three days of school. Believe it or not, I was late to my second "Steinbeck" class and I left after five minutes. No, it wasn't the teacher, students, or content of the class. I will explain.

My Grandpa Chinn went into the hospital for an angiogram. The doctors found major blockage and saw that part of his heart wasn't receiving any blood. They decided to schedule an emergency bi-pass. This was all happening very quickly Friday morning. By the time I arrived (late) to my class, Jana had called to tell me she could pick me up in twenty minutes and we'd be on our way to Salt Lake. Needless to say, I left class. We picked Marie up at her new apartment in Salt Lake and headed to St. Mark's Hospital where we met Heather and Travis and the rest of the family. When we got there, we did a lot of waiting and talking with uncles and aunts. We finally got to see Grandpa just before they took him into surgery to put a balloon in one of his arteries to keep it open and help the blood flow in preparation for the bi-pass he would have on Saturday morning. We kissed him "goodnight" and he was rolled away. We waited and waited til they brought him back out, went to see that he was still alive, gave him a kiss goodnight (for real this time) and went home. My mom, in the mean time, was buying a plane ticket, getting packed, and driving to Long Beach to fly into Salt Lake late Friday night so she could be at the hospital before Grandpa's surgery Saturday morning. She made it. No worries.

Saturday morning, Jana and I met the family in the waiting room. The bi-pass took only three and a half hours (as opposed to the estimated five to six, maybe eight hours). Everything worked out beautifully, according to the surgeon. They did a quadruple bi-pass. Things were mostly "wait and see" all day Saturday and Sunday. We all spent most of our time in the hospital, waiting to see. He was doing really well, according to the nurses and doctors, and spent a lot of time sleeping Saturday, and sitting-up on Sunday. (P.S. Jana and I went with Marie to her new Ward on Sunday... all the single, good-looking, older guys in are Salt Lake, I swear! I may have to move... )

On Monday, his heart started to go out of rhythm, and they had to "jump-start" him three times, only to have no real change. So they put him on a medication that helped to even out his rhythm. He's doing much better now, and the doctors have even decided not to put in a pace-maker. If his heart goes out of rhythm more often and more irregularly, they'll obviously change that decision, but as of right now, everything is GOOD!


Interlaced with the weekend that never ended was a lot of reading and homework that didn't get done. So Sarah's been playing the catch-up game all week long, and it's only the second week of school!! But I'm not really complaining. It's been good for me to do all of the assignments in speed-mode. Besides, my grandpa is alive and well. Why complain?