At the hospital - posted by KARA

Hi, Kara here again. We made it to the hospital! This is pretty unbelievable. The waiting room here is crazy. There has to be 50+ people here waiting -- a real motley crew. :) This place functions like a well-oiled machine (my mom's words). We are currently in the surgical family lounge. We (dad, Shawn and I ) were handed a pager -- just like the ones you get at a restaurant, that light up when your table is ready. There is a large screen in here, similar to the ones at airports, with real-time patient information. It tells you the status of each patient: preop, surgery started, in OR, in ICU, etc. We've never seen anything like this. Once they take my mom back, we can follow her progress on the screen. Eventually they will take my mom up for labs. Then our pager will flash and we will be permitted to go up and stay with her until they actually take her into surgery. Then we will return to this room , watch the screen and wait. It is currently 8:45 a.m. Not sure why we were required to be here sooo early, as her surgery is scheduled for 11:30. We have a loooong day ahead of us. People continue to pour into the room. Phones are ringing, pagers are flashing. It's amazing. I brought my laptop and was lucky enough to find an open network here. I will post with more updates later. We're all anxious, and ask that you continue to keep my mom in your thoughts and prayers.