Alex had surgery again today. He was extremely apprehensive about it, while I was confident all would turn out well. But there were some tiny hints that this might be more serious than merited my confidence.First, there was just a hint of surprise in the nurse's voice when she read the papers that said the doctor had scheduled 5 hours for the operation. That wasn't a surprise to us because of Alex's past experience with scar tissue build-up during surgeries, and for this one the surgeon was going right back to where Alex had had surgery before, guaranteeing that there would be scar tissue to deal with.
Then there were the number of times I heard the staff in the waiting room tell others that the doctor had scheduled 45 minutes to an hour for their surgery. I don't think I heard anyone told their surgery would take more than 2 hours. In fact, because family members were waiting in the same room as the patients waited, and there was no monitor for those waiting to look at to see what the status of their family members or friends were, nearly everyone walked up to the desk to ask how much longer it would be. And that meant I heard even more times that surgery for others was expected to take much less time.
After two hours a man came over to me and said he noticed that I was still waiting, too. He and his daughter had come in at the same time as Alex so he knew I had been waiting just as long as they had. I had already overheard the two of them talking about how the doctors should know that family members would be worried if they didn't get some word of encouragement when surgery took longer than originally scheduled. The daughter tried to reassure him that a delay probably just meant that the surgeon found something more to repair and that was a good thing. I explained to the man that I knew my husband's surgery would take a long time, so I was still waiting.
More people came into the room to check in for their surgery. I heard Lawrence, the man at the desk, make a phone call to ask about the final appointment for the day for one of the doctors. It sounded like the day was being wrapped up. And that's when the worrying began. I started to remember what it was like to be in the family room of the hospital when Mom had her surgery. There were probably four or five families in the room with us. After about two hours, someone had come in to talk individually with each family, including us, about what to expect when the family-member patient came out of surgery - more along the lines of encouraging us to help after the surgery than a status report. I don't remember specifics any longer, but I recall that each family had a similar conversation with someone. It was on the schedule. And in the other cases, someone came to get them to tell them their family member had been moved into the recovery area or to a room and the families all left, one by one, except for us. Someone came in to tell us the surgeons were taking her off bypass and it would be another 30 minutes.
But 45 minutes later the same person came back to say they had to put her back on bypass because they needed to do some additional repairs. And another hour passed when we got a little bit more news. But the person wasn't smiling at us as much now. Another hour passed and someone came in to ask if we had been given any more news. Hours passed until the surgeon came into the room - ours was the only family still left - and gave us the news that Mom didn't make it. Later my sister-in-law Julie, a nurse, told me how she had started worrying long before we got the news because she knew what would likely be happening to Mom's body with all the delays.
Today those thoughts began to go through my mind while I waited for news from Alex's surgeon. My mind starting going into unthinkable territory, posing the question of whether I should stay in San Diego or move back to Virginia or to Minnesota if something happened to Alex. While we have our wills, durable powers of attorney, and advanced medical directives done, there are still so many details we haven't even discussed together.
With a little more than an hour left before I expected to hear anything from the surgeon, I told Lawrence that I would be going to the cafeteria around the corner from the family room to get something to eat. But just as I walked out and the door was closing behind me, I heard Lawrence call out my name. The surgeon had just called and would be coming out to talk with me. The news was good. Surgery took less time than he had planned, he had found just what he expected to find, and he repaired it. But since this was repair to a previous surgery, it was more complicated than the first surgery and Alex's recovery will likely be slower. I still had another two hours to wait while Alex was in the recovery room before he would be brought to his room. After another two and a half hours, Lawrence gave me the room number where Alex had been moved, and I went up to see him. He appeared to be sleeping and his face was quite pale. His leg is all wrapped up and immobilized. And the room is pretty stark compared to what we got accustomed to in Virginia. But he is there and I expect he will begin joking with the nurses within a day.
Alex was probably right to be apprehensive, but I'm glad I was right to be confident. Now we just have to wait for the healing and recovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment