Post Op

Yesterday was Rick's umbilical hernia surgery.
He is doing fine today. Sitting up in his recliner and enjoying watching TV during the day. He is fine until he has to move, bend, laugh or cough

Yesterday played out like this.
He was to be at the hospital at 11am for pre-procedure.
We left at 10am to drop off the doggy daycare because we had no idea how long this would go. Yes, they did give us times but this was a just in case. Besides my diva dog can't go from 10a to 7:30p without having a bathroom break. So she had to go to doggy daycare.

Rick and I were at the hospital on time and they took us back to an area for him to get undressed, go over everything with the nurses and get an IV started. He met with nurses, anesthesiologists, doctors etc. His surgery was to start at 12:30.
He flirted with nurses and had them all laughing. Two of them wanted him to stick around because most of their patients they said have had a humorectomy.
That made me laugh.  After the doctor came in she went over what she was doing to him again and they took him away.

I was escorted to a room to sit and wait with others. I was handed a sheet of paper that explained the color coding system I would stare at all day on a big 65" TV. (i refer to it as the board)  This is the damn board below. Rick was given number 751095. As you can see here at the time of this photo he was in surgery.

According to the doctor this was going to take 90 minutes or less. That is a quote.  Then recovery would only be 1 hour.

I have had several surgeries and Rick always says it is harder on the person waiting than the patient.

I now understand what he means!  This was Rick’s first surgery.

The doctor told me the surgery would be 90 minutes or less. So at 90 minutes I was hoping to see the next color, light blue, saying recovery. But nothing. Then at the 2 hr mark I admit I was getting a bit nervous.

At 2 hrs and 10 minutes I received a call on my cell, it was his recovery nurse telling me he was now in recovery as I watched the board change to the recovery light blue. Whew. She told me he would be there for only an hour. She would call me again when he is in the dark blue/phase II part which meant he would be given discharge instructions and sent home.

The waiting room now only has 2 of us. A woman in her 40’s was waiting for her mom who had a knee replacement. Her mom has A-fib, high blood pressure and other assorted issues. We were chatting about how this board was supposed to be helpful but you can’t take your eyes off this and it makes you nuts.

At one point we were both a bit concerned because they both should have been out of recovery about 30 minutes ago.

At the 1hr and 30-minute recovery mark the board still just said recovery. Then over the loud speaker they were yelling Code Stroke and for personnel to go to the name of recovery room area where our loved ones were. This was repeated many times and we saw people running from everywhere.

She and I looked at one another and went into panic mode.  While we looked cool on the outside I saw it all over her face, as I am sure she did mine.

We were both concerned, to say the least, and she kept saying, “Oh God maybe that is why she has been in there longer than 1 hr.”  I am trying to calm her but those were my thoughts exactly. I went over to a woman who worked there and asked if she could tell me about my husband and she told me watch the board. Gee thanks.

Finally, the woman sitting with me got a call at the 1 hr 50-minute mark and she was told she could go back and see her mom. She hugged me and told me she hoped all was well for me too. Yep, so do I.  So now I am the only one sitting there with a loved one in recovery for 2 hrs when they told me it was only 1hr.

Everyone else was in procedure mode.

I have to admit I was not calm and I couldn’t just sit. So I paced.

At the 2 hours and 15-minute mark I got the call that he was fine but he got sick and they wanted to wait until his pain meds kicked in because he was in a lot of pain. Gee you couldn’t have called to tell me that at the one hour mark?

Now I know what I have put that poor man through for all my surgeries. He was right. Shh….don’t tell him that.

(I am always right, sometimes less right, but never wrong. J)

So this 2.5 hr event was over 4 hrs, which is probably more normal than I know. However, I feel as though I shouldn’t have been told times because if they are later than what they tell you, one just worries.

After Rick got in the car to go home we saw the sea of red lights at rush hour. The 6-mile ride to doggy day care took us another 1hr and 15 minutes. Riding in the car was not making him feel any better and he actually laughed and said, “why of course this wasn’t going to be easy” He held on to his vomit bag for the ride home just in case. Thankfully we didn’t move fast enough for him to be ill.

We had to get Izzy by 7p or the doors are locked. We called and they said they have had several calls about traffic they will wait for us. We got there at 7:05p.

Thankfully we were only 2 miles from home now. 

It sure was an eventful day and I am happy as hell it all went according to plan.

We were given pictures of the surgery from the doctor. She was so excited to show me all this stuff. Eeew. I was feigning interest because honestly, I didn't want to look at these. I knew Rick sure as hell would like them when he was better. And I was right.