Surgery Day

Luckily, I had my brother to entertain me all day. My baby brother, Brett, makes me laugh hysterically. He is so funny and he reminds me of Sam when I’m not with Sam, just as Sam reminds me of my brother sometimes, too. They both have the same weird sense of humor. It’s good to have him in situations like these. He can also make me cry very easily. All I have to do is look at him when he has tears in his eyes. I can’t handle it when he cries. It’s like watching my own children cry, it automatically makes me cry.

Before Mom went into surgery, we were in her room and you could see people trying to use the access code to get into the parking lot from her window. Most of the people were old and couldn’t figure out the technology of a push button pad. You know, they are still used to dial phones and they have no clue what a computer is. We were all standing there watching and 9 out of 10 people couldn’t get it right. We couldn’t open the window to yell at them how to do it. So, instead we held up fingers and made a “#” sign to try to the show them. They wouldn’t listen. Or look, as the case may be. My brother was making joke after joke and I had tears from laughing so hard. My Mom was snoring in the bed. The Valium they gave her made her pretty comfortable. Which was good.

At about 9am, they took her off and we went down to the CV family waiting room. At about 9:10, we heard, “Code Blue, cardioecho lab room 2! Code blue cardioecho lab room 2!” My heart hit the floor. I went to look at the screen that tells where patients are, but it didn’t say which room she was in. As I was walking back to where my brother was sitting, the lady at the desk came up and put her arm around me and said, “Your Mom is in room 1.” Breathe. I thanked the lady for re-starting MY heart.

After almost 3 hours, they told us to go wait in the family room, that she was out of the procedure and that the doctor would be coming to talk to us soon. After about 5 minutes, the lady came and told us that he wanted us to go upstairs and that he would talk to us up there in Mom’s room. We went up there and waited another hour or so. Finally, my brother and his wife went home to get something to eat and let their dogs out. I was starving, too, but didn’t dare leave because as soon as I did, I knew he would come to talk to us. Finally, the nurse came in and said that he had gone to a meeting about an hour away and was on his way back and would be there in about 45 minutes. That gave me enough time to go downstairs/outside so I could turn my cell back on and call/text people about Mom and then get something to eat at the cafeteria. I got back up, finished eating, played on Facebook for awhile and finally, about 2 1/2 hours post op, he came and saw us.

He said that, in the leg that was giving her trouble, the pulse in that foot is just bounding. Great news! He had widened a spot that had narrowed in a previous bypass location and also widened a spot in a previously placed stint that had narrowed. So, she got tune-ups on previous problem spots and the engine is running smoothly again. She will be mostly out of commission for a few days, but will probably be doing cartwheels again next week. That’s almost literally speaking. Almost. Seriously, the woman is 60+ and I bet she’d still try to do a cartwheel if you asked her to. Please don’t.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I really appreciate it.