BTW - I also have really good sisters! Maggie is at home taking care of my babies and Anne came as well today to sit with us. Doug and Lauren were here for the majority of the time as well. It's nice to have such support!
So here's how things shook out:
As I mentioned, Jim was taken back at around 7:15. They whole procedure took until about 2:30. I got hourlyish updates from the nurses and finally, around 2:30, Dr. Locher called to give me the rundown.
Jim did really well and they surgery went as planned. They replaced his effed up valve (the doc said it was like stone), repaired his aortic aneurysm and bypassed an artery using a vein from his thigh.
When the doc called he told me that they would be finishing up surgery in about 15 minutes and after that it would take about 2 hours for them to get Jim into a state where I could see him. They needed to make sure he wasn't bleeding (too much) and they needed to have him start coming out of sedation so they could tell if he'd had a stroke.
After three hours, I'd not heard anything so I went searching for someone to give me some answers. Around 5:40, one of the nurses finally came out to see me. Actually, she pulled Trip and I into a consult room which freaked me out. She initially said to me, "Did anyone tell you that they had to do a bronchoscopy?" I said, "Uh...no one has told us anything. The last person I talked to was Dr. Locher at 2:30." Anyway, because his lungs sounded junky then needed to do the procedure. They found a lot of mucus removed that and said after that he was doing much better.
In addition, Jim is apparently very agitated and they're having a hard time getting him to relax and breathe on his own so they can remove his tube. She then said that they were going to try to calm him for another hour but if they couldn't they would sedate him and let him sleep and take the tube out in the morning. I said to her in so many words that I was exhausted and fine with doing that immediately but she wasn't catching on.
Did I mention I'm exhausted? I'm hungry. My eyes burn. Oh, and I want a glass of wine.
BTW - the nurse did say that aside from all that, Jim is very stable. He did really well with his surgery, it's just this tube down his throat that's giving him fits. I will say that this was one of the few questions he had when we did his pre-op visit last week (aside from pooping on the table, which I forgot to ask about) so I'm not surprised.
Anyway - that's all I've got for now. I just thought I'd get all this down while it was still fresh in my mind. It's 6:25 and I still haven't heard anything. And I'm exhausted. And my eyes burn and I'd sure like a glass of wine. And I'm hungry and I miss my boys.
K - I'll update more later...probably tomorrow after I see Jim. Later!
No comments:
Post a Comment