Trip to Mayo: Days 3 & 4: Healing Up Ready to Start the Transition Toward Home

The past two days have been sort of a big blur as I have spent most of my waking hours at the hospital. The operation was pretty hard on my son and he was needing his parents to be around. In fact, in the past three days I have spent almost 40 hours inside Rochester Methodist Hospital. However, there were a few other items of note the past couple of days:

1) The Mookie! I had a decent walk in front of me in order to get to my room and register in the Mookie. I entered a little bit late, but that was no big deal. Very nice showing for the blogger "home event." I guess a little (a lot, actually) WSOP money can do that.

I finished a nondescript 25th out of 122 entrants. Play was tough as for a long time in the tournament I had ck on my immediate right. Toward the end MiamiDon, the biggest stack, was on my left. There was little room for error. I finally crashed and burned when my A-9 went down to Don's K-K.

2) Lunch with OhCaptain. Sonny and Cher once sang "It's the little things that mean a lot." Having a connection here in town and someone to shoot the crap with about poker, blogger gatherings, etc gave me a little time away from the medical grind. Thanks a lot, bro -- you're the greatest!

3) I connected with a physician at Mayo with whom I lived many moons ago in college. "Pots," as we called him, was a senior when I was a junior. We lived in a suite with four other guys and had one hell of a time. Nerf basketball battles, late night "dog runs" (heading out to the 24-hour grocery store to buy hot dogs), and just other goofy stuff you do in college to pass the time -- those are some of my best college memories. It is always nice to see that some of your old friends have been successful after you have lost touch with them. I was at Pots's wedding almost 30 years ago. I think this is the first time I've seen him since.

And finally ... we are hoping that my son will be discharged Friday morning. He'll probably need at least a day to recover before we make the long trip home. I am really ready to end this horrific chapter of our lives. I'll be putting some other thoughts down regarding this whole event, but right now a few hours of sleep sounds sooooo good ...