Update on my dad. I just talked with my sister, she texted me last night based on a phone call with the doctor, while she was in a restaurant (her 10 year anniversary!), so she didn't quite hear everything, or understand everything.

I just talked with my sister, and then also my father's girl friend, and got more of the details.

They ended up needing to remove his spleen, gall bladder, and 1/5th of his pancreas. During the operation, one of the symptoms for Malignant Hypothermia showed up, blood gases showed acidosis, so they started treating him for that before things went all haywire. The surgery went on for over 8 hours. He is in ICU recovery right now. He is stable. He has been having some temperature fluctuations, but that seems to have leveled out. He is intubated, and looks to be on the ventilator for another 2 days. Apparently the intubating process was difficult from swollen something-or-other, which they say was due to his excessive drinking. So he will have a nasty soar throat when he wakes up.

He is stable. His vitals look good. But it doesn't sound like he's out of the woods yet. So, any ~ma would be appreciated.

Rigatoni is better but still in a very tough situation.

Turns out he didn't need mechanical ventilation, though he's on extra oxygen now and then. The kidney is, if anything, producing too much, which leads to problems like low potassium. His blood pressure is shaky, though at least it's shaky on a lower level of medication.

Now that the kidney is functioning okay (and a transplant is no longer being considered), the vets are going to get more aggressive on his other problems. They hope to have a good idea tonight.

We visited him on Saturday. He was weak but aware of what was happening around him. (The transplant nurse from Penn was there as well. So he got a lot of love.)

Bad news on Rigatoni. He suffered a sharp reversal yesterday. His heart is dangerously enlarged from fluid, and fluid around his lungs is interfering with his breathing. Plus, the kidney is working so well that he's dehydrated. So if they don't give him fluids, the dehydration becomes worse, and if they do, he risks heart failure.

The vets say they don't have many options. We agreed to see how things went overnight. But we may have to make The Decision this morning.

I don't know why I'm at work today. I spent half the evening crying and the other half with mindless TV. I cried for the entire commute.

I'll be going to New York tomorrow, but I fear it'll be to bring his body home and not to visit.

If there is any free, some calmness ~ma for a very dear friend who found a lump in her breast, and is anxiously awaiting the results of the biopsy.

And just a little bit of -ma for my therapist, who's just been ordered to a month of bedrest to keep her pregnancy going.

Can I ask for ~ma for The Girl's father, who is having his pancreas biopsy today? Also for the whole family, who are all quite freaked out. He's been told there's a 70% chance it's cancer. We're all trying to think '30%' in the general direction of the universe.

It's cancer. Recovery~ma now very much appreciated. Odds are sucky with this type, apparently.

I know they're in the best place for it (M.D. Anderson) but I'm freaked out - so I can only imagine how my not-quite-father-in-law, The Girl and their family are doing.

Rigatoni didn't make it.

When we got to the hospital on Wednesday (insert rant here about street closings around the U.N., which made traffic even worse than expected), the vet told us Rigatoni had gone into heart failure overnight. He was in an oxygen tent, resting comfortably thanks to the pain meds. However, five days after his last surgery, he was still on blood pressure meds that are normally used for only 24 to 48 hours.

The real problem was that (1) the kidney was functioning again, but too well -- he was getting dehydrated, and he wasn't able to retain electrolytes and those other little things that the kidney is supposed to let go through, combined with (2) fluid was collecting in and around both his heart and lungs. The kidney part wasn't too unusual in acute failure -- when the kidney starts functioning again, it goes into overdrive for a while to make up for lost filtering. It then usually goes back to normal. But for Rigatoni to have a chance, that regulation would have had to happen in world record time.

So the vets were down to the choice of treating the heart, which would have caused him to die of dehydration, or treating the kidney with fluids, which would have put him int o cardiac arrest.

So we had him put to sleep. The nurse from the U Penn feline kidney transplant unit was in NYC on another errand, and she had planned to visit anyway. So she was also there at the end. The three of us were petting and cuddling him as the vet gave the injection. So the last thing Rigatoni was aware of was being loved.

He was 2-1/2 years old -- about 27 in human terms. He packed a lot of life into that time, but it wasn't enough.

I took yesterday off to make arrangements. I'm at work today. I'm in tears. Even the sky is crying.

My annual review is in about an hour and a half. It's been a tense year in the office (as in so many places), and while I think my work has been as good as ever, I really have no idea how things will go.

So some of the patented ~ma would be appreciated, please.

I have a couple of phone conversations that could wind up in contract work turning into something more. That said, I am a proven Terrible Negotiator with this company and if someone could rent me a spine, it would be very kind of you. If there's spare job~ma about, to help bring this possibility towards some sort of actual state, I'd be very grateful.