I’m in Western Pennsylvania. Been here a bit longer than planned. Here’s what happened:

We planned a trip here to celebrate my sister’s thirtieth birthday. My dad and stepmother, Pauline, planned a visit from their home in Atlanta at the same time.

The day before the trip was to begin, we learned that my stepfather, Mike, needed to have a sextuple bipass in five days. (Mike and my mom also live in Western Pennsylvania.) This was very unexpected, especially for Mike, who was feeling just fine, really, until when, during one of his routine procedures for ongoing heart troubles, the doctor found severe blockages throughout his heart. Mike lives a very healthy lifestyle, but heart disease runs in his family. The doctors also think he may be diabetic. This, too, was a surprise, since he’s never experienced any symptoms of diabetes.

We flew here. I changed my return-ticket so I could stay longer. We changed Stevel’s return-ticket, so he could stay shorter (Mia still requires a lot of medicating and care, and we don’t want the neighbors to have to attend to it for too long—or for Mia to be alone too much).

We all (ALL) celebrated my sister’s thirtieth birthday. She had a cookout at her new house (which is terrific), and my four (FOUR) parents attended. Mike was in good spirits, not too nervous at all.

I started to get kind of sick.

Mike went in for his surgery and came through it like a CHAMP. The surgeon was able to do only a quadruple bipass, due to some of the veins he needed to graft being too difficult to access. But he assures us it shouldn’t be a problem—that he got the four most in need, and Mike should be just fine. Mike’s not in a lot of pain, although he’s uncomfortable. For anyone out there who doesn’t know what’s involved in bipass surgery, he’s got a lot to recover from. Not only has his heart undergone major changes that require adjustment, but veins have been removed from his leg, and he has a big old broken bone in his chest. Ow. It’s going to take some time before he’s back up to speed, but he should be a new, improved model of his old self by the end of the summer. We’re hoping he can come home from the hospital tomorrow, but if not then, Monday.

In other news, my sickness got worse and worse, and by Tuesday—the day of Mike’s surgery, when I was planning to wait in the waiting room with my mom—I could barely stand up. My sister left work to be with my mom at the hospital, and my long-time friend, Tracey, who is a nurse now, was to take me to a doctor. But my mom insisted my sister do it, so Cheri came and got me. It turned out to be tonsilitis in the right tonsil, the result of (and in addition to) a severe sinus infection. The timing could not have possibly been more inconvenient. Here I was, wanting to be a help to my family, and instead needing help from them on the worst possible day for it! And no wonder it had been so painful to swallow. Madness. But I’m much better now.

I should mention that highlights of this trip have been seeing my sister and her family’s new house, hanging out with my neices a lot, and getting to see Tracey and the Deckers (including Leela!). Best of all, though, is seeing for myself today that Mike is doing fine, slowly improving and heading towards more improvement, and that my mom and family are all OK. So I can go back to California tomorrow knowing that.