On Tuesday afternoon, I received an unexpected and alarming call from my sister. My father, who lives in South Carolina, had broken his femur, and required immediate surgery. And when I say that he broke it, what I mean to say that he BROKE it. In this context, ‘broke’ is to ‘BROKE’ as ‘wet’ is to ‘TSUNAMI’. In light of several other ongoing health issues he has, this was a very. Big. Deal.

I drove all night. He had the surgery the following day, and it was a success. His newly rejoined femur bone is now rubbing its temples, drinking coffee, and slowly knitting itself around an 18-inch titanium rod in his right thigh.

And Senior slumbers on, taking a well-deserved and much overdue sleep - The most stoic and noncomplaining human being… well, ever.

I’ve heard that a broken femur is one of the most agonizing things a person can endure, and he’d walked on his for five weeks, denying pain medication and holding it all in as it steadily got worse and worse (Note added on March 06: He’d been to the ER about the pain in late January, and was told that it wasn’t broken, but contused, and that the best thing to do would be to continue to walk on it - Solid advice, Doc!). Brian Regan does an entire ‘on a scale from 1 to 10, rate your pain’ bit about hospitals and broken femur bones that I can now no longer find funny, thank you, Dad. And you’ll thank me very much to not go into further detail about the specifics of his broken femur. Let’s just say that you’d probably wince and make a “ssssssssss” sound as you closed down your browser and deleted your history.

Remember that guy with the dry-socketed root canal, who was passing kidney stones when he got shot in the belly and fell off that ladder? And as he fell, his nostril got caught on the ceiling hook? Remember that guy? Senior would laugh at that wuss and tell him to man up. Then, he’d explain about his broken femur, and that guy would wince, say “sssssssssss”, and close down your browser.

So, even though I’ve been camped out in a chair in a hospital room for two days, I haven’t had much time to post anything. And Jill, who is home alone with all three boys… she definitely hasn’t had time to post anything. So I decided that while Senior rested, I would stay up real, real late, and post. Anything.

We’re on the 7th floor, and from where I’m sitting, I can see five blocks of stoplights going up North Fant Street. For about three seconds out of each minute, they’re all green at the same time. They don’t know that there are no cars out in Anderson tonight. Anderson is sleeping, just like Senior.

Green, green, red, green, red.

I can hear the distant murmuring of conversation down at the nurse’s station, and somewhere, an IV machine is beeping. It sounds just like a delivery truck backing up.

Green, red, red, green, green.

Senior’s awake now, and he’s telling me a sleepy story about an old woman and an antique pistol. I stop typing and listen to him until his voice trails off and doesn’t start back up again.

Green, green, green, green, green. All are go.

And now, it’s time for me to sleep too.