Miranda departed yesterday to return to her academic pursuits. She has papers due next week at Harvard, and a summer program of research begining soon -- a few weeks of library research in Cambridge and the rest of the summer in France gathering material for her Honors Thesis. This time next year she'll be preparing to graduate. Wow!

It's been wonderful having her here. She and Bob are two of a kind -- I know some of you will find it hard to believe that there's more than one, but it's true. They keep up an endless, erudite chatter that bounces dizzyingly from one topic to the next. It's all I can do to keep up. But we knew Bob was going to be fine when the bad puns started again!

This will be Kathleen's last posting here. We've settled into a routine of rest, gentle exercise, and quiet activities -- reading, conversation, listening to music. We've watched more movies on video in the past few day than in the preceding few years, I think. It's becoming hard to find anything new and interesting to say to you -- we do the same things day after day. And Bob is now well enough to post a note himself from time to time -- I don't know how regular he'll be about it, but I'm going to turn this function back over to him.

It has been an amazing journey thus far. Your prayers and messages of support have helped to sustain us. The process of reporting here on Bob's progress has helped me to keep things in perspective. The journey will continue and we will see you all again at various future times and places. May you all be blessed by love and care as we have been.

An hour ago Bob went for a walk with Miranda and tired himself out, so now he's resting up. Miranda has gone out to fetch us Indian food. Medium hot! Yum!

Love to you all from our quiet, happy house.

He finally perked up about an hour ago. Miranda (his daughter) is here now and that's improved his attitude a lot. He's showing off his incision and chattering away about family, poetry, old movies, limericks, and miscellaneous arcane bits of trivia.

I wrote this next bit yesterday and sent it as part of an email letter to some close friends. I didn't put it up here right away because I thought it might gross some people out. Bob got to see it and liked it and asked me to post it here. So - parental discretion advised:
"They let me in to see him about 90 minutes later [after bringing him down from the OR]. He was, paradoxically, the most beautiful and the most revolting thing I've ever seen. He was still unconscious, with a ventilator tube down his throat and wound up in yards of i.v. tubing. And he was the color of watery mud -- he looked like someone who'd been recently dead. But he was breathing, and his heart was beating entirely on its own -- apparently they turned on the ignition and he started right up. He was beautiful."

Down-shifting into R&R mode is a bit disconcerting -- I keep waiting for the next milestone, the next scheduled medical indignity. But it sure is nice to be home with my own kitchen and my own bed. That little fold-out chair they had me sleeping in at the hospital was not real cozy. Home is decidedly best.

Most of the high drama is over now. We'll be settling into a quiet routine of rest, medication schedules and gradually increasing exercise. The cardiac rehab program will start in about 4 weeks. Until then, it's mainly rest and recuperation and frequent short walks. Pleasantly dull -- a nice change from the recent past.

Bob's getting mobile quickly -- he gets up easily from bed and chair now without holding his breastbone. We've been for several hikes, round and round the circular ward. Not much for scenery and he tires easily, but his stamina is growing and we do better each time. He's beginning to talk about coming home -- we hope for tomorrow or Monday. There's still a lot of recuperating to do -- a lot of resting and cardiac rehab and monitoring the anti-coagulation therapy from home. But after what we've already been through, that doesn't look hard at all.

I got a good night's sleep last night. As Bob gets stronger, he's trying to take over his own care as much as he can. From having to fetch or carry something every few minutes, I've been relegated to the visitor's chair and a supervisory role, trying to keep him from doing too much. But he's being very sensible for the most part -- he wants to get this over with. So I'm having a much easier time.

It's such fun to come home each day and find a stack of email messages to print out and cards in the mailbox. Bob loves reading over them, and I love watching him. I hope tomorrow I can tell you that I'm watching him as I write the day's update for you.

This morning he was very tired (are we surprised?), but still not very comfortable in bed. People kept popping in for most of the morning. He would doze off and almost immediately there'd be a knock on the door. Hospitals are like that. It's not a rest cure! But we both managed to grab a 90-minute nap before lunch. Then he ate a good lunch and felt better for it. And then they removed the drainage tubes from his chest and the unrinary catheter -- and now he's feeling a whole lot better. I made him promise not go go for an extended hike around the halls until I get back -- but I'd better hurry up and get back.

All the various tests continue to show excellent results, and he's beginning to look like himself again. He's still got a lot of extra fluid on board and continues to get diuretics, but now they come by mouth, not injection. They've begun to stabilize the anti-coagulant dosage. Bob's pretty steady on his feet by now -- and with the drainage and catheter tubes gone, he'll be able to navigate more than a few feet from the bed. Things are definitely looking up.

For those of you who have voiced concern about me, I am taking care of me too. That nap before lunch did me a lot of good -- before that I was dragging. And I do get away now and again -- down to the cafeteria for a meal, or home to check the messages and send these updates. It does feel good to be out of range for a few minutes. But it's good to go back too. Bob is turning out to be a pretty good patient, despite all his assertions to the contrary.

Thanks again for all the prayers and good wishes. It really makes the process easier to know that so many good people care.

He's gotten up to sit in a chair twice today, for more than an hour each time. And he's had two liquid-diet meals. For dinner, he'll get real food. He's a bit puffy -- he's retained a lot of water and is getting a diuretic. But doctors, nurses, and wife are all extremely pleased with his progress.

I will be staying most of the time at the hospital now that he's out of the cardiac intensive care unit. I'll come home about mid-afternoon each day to check mail, print out messages for Bob and post an update here. I took in the first lot of messages this morning and he did look through them, though he isn't really ready yet to read a whole lot -- your prayers and good wishes mean an awful lot to him. Thank you from both of us.

When I got back to the hospital Bob was awake. He still had the ventilator tube in his throat and couldn't talk, but when I walked through the door I was handed a note -- scrawled with his left hand because his right was taped to a device full of tubing -- "Tell my wife that my mind is clear." Bob's greatest fear was that he would suffer some neurological damage while on the bypass pump. It didn't happen. He isn't even very groggy -- sleepy, yes -- but when he's awake he's aware and coherent.

The ventilator was removed not long after, and Bob's first vocal attempt was to sing. Harp Singers take note -- he'll be back!

By the time I left this evening, they had him propped up in bed and he was beginning to crack jokes. The pain control is quite effective -- he is not in much discomfort. Right now he's getting i.v. morphine but will probably graduate to oral pain medication tomorrow. They will sit him up on the side of the bed for a few minutes later tonight.

All the vital signs are good, and the heart valve is functioning perfectly. The cardiologist came in while I was there, studied all the wiggly lines on the monitor for a while and declared him "all fixed." I sure hope he was referring to Bob's heart.

Grace has been showered on us today. It has been a wild ride, but I am profoundly grateful. And profoundly tired. And so to bed. More news tomorrow.

The ventilator will probably be removed in the next hour. All vital signs are good. By the end of the afternoon, he should be awake and able to speak, but still pretty groggy. The only difficulty so far is that his platelet count is a little low and the wounds are a "bit oozy," to quote the surgeon. He's getting platelets and plasma to stop the oozing.

It will be tomorrow at least before he gets out of CCU. I'm headed back to the hospital now so I can see him again when he's awake. But I'll return here tonight to sleep. After he's been moved to a private room, I'll stay there with him day and night. It's not that I think he's getting bad care, but I've been convinced by my own recent hospital stays that anyone in any hospital needs an advocate to stay with them.

Devout thanks to the Divine for this mercy and care. Devout thanks to all of you for your prayers and love.

The surgeon came by while Bob was recovering from the angiogram and spent a long time with us, answering questions and talking about post-operative care. We're both feeling more comfortable about everything. Fewer uncertainties.

We are at home and Bob is napping now. We'll be here until after supper and then go back to the hospital. It takes only 10-15 minutes to drive there from here. Truly convenient. I don't know whether I'll stay there tonight or come home to sleep. In any case, I'll be there early, early in the morning and stay with him as long as I can. Friends are coming to stay with me during the surgery.

Keep those thoughts and prayers coming! Y'all are doing a wonderful job.

On Tuesday -- the fun begins. Early in the morning, an angiogram will be done to let the doctors see all the blood vessels around Bob's heart. That procedure will keep him in the hospital for at least 6 hours.

We hope to get back home for a while Tuesday afternoon, returning to the hospital about eight o'clock in the evening to prepare for the main event.

The open heart surgery will begin about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. It will probably be noon or later before we know how it turns out. We anticipate that Bob will be in cardiac intensive care until sometime Wednesday night and then in a regular hospital room for 3-4 days. If all goes well, he may come home this weekend.

Stay tuned to see how well the theory fits the reality.