At the hospital

There are many things to do...some are more fun than others.
Riding up and down the elevator, finding the cafeteria, getting tossed out of the cafeteria, reading, listening to other peoples conversations, talking and saying things to make other people listen to your conversation and wonder, running in and out to talk on your phone, directing traffic (the people kind), making new friends with the staff, and finding new people to piss off.

yep, there are so many things to do, oh yea...and wait.


mercygeneral.org
mercygeneral.org: Medical Services Heart And Vascular Institute
Mercyheartsacramento.org

www.nlm.nih.gov: medline plus ency article 002946

6:00 AM - wake up get ready
6:30 AM - head to hospital, find parking - had to pay!
7:00 AM - find his room to say hello before surgery
7:40 AM - Surgery

8ish,  - given a pager that will go off if/when the surgeon is ready to chat with us. All of our numbers are taken down. Rachel and I are the main contacts.

8:30ish - got breakfast
9:30ish - headed to a park close by to distract niece. She was not distracted long
Headed to the Mall close by to finish school shopping for said niece, she will be in kindergarten this year!

Found clothes, and lotion for my sun-burnt skin.
Got lunch.
We were loosing track of time, except that we knew the buzzer had not gone off, and we were getting antsy since the surgery was to be about 5 hours.
3:00PM - headed back to the hospital to track someone down for information.
Found a nurse who had worried that no one loved him, but was glad to see us, had no idea we had a pager, (the round kind like you get at Chili's).  Said he was still in surgery. 
We headed to the caffeteria.
Met up with his brother, and was on the phone with other family members.
Had something to eat.

4:30 PM- headed up to wait again. No news.
Sat down and pager went off.
Went back to the nurses desk and was told he was out of surgery, and that the surgeon had already spoken with the family.
Frantic discussion with volunteer to find out who, since it should have been either of us, explained that our pager just went off, we were told that meant the surgeon would be ready to talk with us in about 15min. She looked worried and ran back into the surgeons area for more info. We sat down, much closer to the volunteer desk to see when she came back. 
The surgeon came out apologized for the mix up, he had not spoken with anyone. He was out of surgery a little after 2PM some time. He had come out to see if we were there at 4:15pm. 
Rachel got to go back while I stayed with the little niece.
After visiting Rachel shared about a nurse who was kicking people out of the rooms, and making loved ones very upset.  Words were exchanged, not Rachel of course, but another lady decided to yell back at the nurse.
Then we all piled into my car and headed home to rest, and be very glad that he was doing well, although not woken up yet.
11:00 PM - Called hospital, he had still not woken up
1:00ish AM - woke up could squeeze their hand on Que. No signs of stroke. He went back to sleep. We were very glad to know he would make a good recovery.

 

So the pictures and more can be found at that last link.  Lots of information to be gleaned there if you are more interested in what the process was going on under the knife.

I can only say that waiting in hospitals is not fun, and little girls get bored quickly.  Mix ups happen when they give you pagers, and shift changes happen while you are waiting to hear what is going on.  Cell phones are also notoriously unreliable in the middle of the hospital, so coordinating family was lots of fun.

So in the end, the surgery went well. He's healing up quickly.  The recovery will happen at our place, and then he will need to continue to follow the doctors orders but will have more freedom at his own place after he is able to climb stairs and lift things over 10lbs.