While we were waiting, I met the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, a nurse-patient liaison, and more operating room nurses than I can remember. There was actually a second surgeon, but he was busy in another operation, and didn't introduce himself. Everyone was extremely professional and did their best to put us at ease.
There is no way to be relaxed about major surgery though. Janet was scared and I was just hoping that my innate fear of doctors and hospitals wasn't showing. I didn't want to make things worse. The only comfort was that Janet had done her homework and found a superb surgeon. Everybody said that this guy was the very best. When the anesthesiologist came to prepare her for the operating room, I went home to feed and walk Dash while waiting for the call that everything was OK.
The surgery went quicker than I thought it would. The first surgeon called about an hour an a half after I got home and the second surgeon called an hour after that to say everything was completed. Surgeons are not very talkative, but both seemed pleased with the results and said there were no complications.
When I went to visit Janet this evening after she got out of the recovery room, she was all hooked up to tubes and looked very tired. She was hungry though and said she wished they had brought her a ham sandwich instead of Jello and chicken broth. There was probably good reason that the doctors didn't want her to eat solid food right away. It was hard enough to get her to drink a glass of water through a straw. Janet wanted me to text her family and friends and let them know she was OK. This took forever, since I'm terrible at texting. I don't see how anyone can do this quickly. I can barely see the tiny keyboard.
If all goes well tonight, Janet will be released from the hospital later tomorrow. There will be a nurse that comes to the house for a while and then I will take over most of the post-op care. Dot prepared me well for being a caregiver, so I think everything will be fine.
It's been a long day. Actually, it's been a very long year. I often wish that life would return to normal, but lately I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as normal. When you get to know people well, you realize that nobody's life is all that normal. We are all dealing with things we never expected.
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