Thanks for the well wishes Larry. It was one of the scariest events myself and my family have ever expirienced!
I flew down to Bama as soon as I found out and spent the week sleeping in the UAB Hospital's neurological ICU waiting room with her husband and our two brothers.
Of course my stupid, cheap, and greedy job won't pay me for the time missed. That requires death.
No way was I gonna linger around 1,200 miles away during such a crisis! I made it just in time to see her briefly before the surgery and stayed until the critical "danger zone" had passed.
That NICU is like one of the saddest places you will find anywhere. I feel very fortunate that our story was one of those with a happy ending when we witnessed quite a few end in tragedy there.
I am now a firm believer in second opinions like never before. Not all doctors will assume and try to rule out the worst it seems but some do.
When my wife had some chest pains a while back, her doctor ordered her into the hospital just to rule out the worst case scenarios. It turned out to be nothing major, but I am thankful we endured a day in the ER and the co-pay, rather than have something suddenly go fatally wrong with her heart.