October 22, 2010

• Dan's Surgery -BE WARNED- Not for the Squeamish!

  A few weeks ago, Dan complained of pain in his lower abdomen, right above his leg. He was suspicious that it was a hernia. One morning he woke up and had a gurgling bulge, which seemed to confirm his suspicion!! So I set up an appointment with our family Dr. She confirmed what he feared, so we asked a friend who worked at a local hospital for recommendations for the needed surgery. Eric recommended 2 different surgeons, 1 male, 1 female. I called the male surgeon first, but he had a waiting list till November. The female surgeon could have him come for a consultation the next week. So we scheduled a visit with Dr. Goodpaster for Thursday, October 14.

  Sitting in Dr. Goodpaster's office....after the visit, he went straight to work.

  

  The consultation went well and he was scheduled for surgery on Monday, October 18. He needed to go to the hospital for pre-op bloodwork and possibly and EKG on Friday, the day after the consultation.

   Thankfully he didn't need the EKG! We spent most of Friday morning in waiting rooms. The lab work didn't take much time at all. Friday was Dan's day off work, so it was nice he didn't have to miss ANOTHER day of work. We did a little shopping after his appointment. I am on the sewing circle committee and part of my job is to buy gifts for people who had a death in the family or have been in the hospital. So we went to Lowes and got rose bushes for 2 families who lost their mother a few months ago and also bought a Hibiscus bush for an elderly lady who just had surgery. We also stopped at Big Lots to check out some trees I saw the day before that were on clearance for $10. Well, how surprised we were when we got there and they were reduced even more....to $2 each!! So, we bought us 3 Magnolia trees for $6!! Granted they hadn't been watered and looked like they were about to die, but we brought them home and planted them and watered them....I hope they do good. If not, we didn't lose much! If they do well, someone will get to enjoy some front yard shade in this house in the years to come!!

  Waiting to get blood drawn...the kids went along for both of these first 2 appointments and were tired of waiting rooms till that was over. I figured we spent about  3-4 hours in waiting rooms in those 2 days.

  

  So, Monday was the day! We got to the hospital at 8:30 and it didn't take long for them to call him back to this room where they prepped him for surgery. This room also had a nice big leather-like recliner that I got to hang out in during his surgery!! I spent most of my waiting time reading and playing Sudoku.

  

  The surgery took about 1 1/2 hours, then he spent about 45 minutes in the recovery room till they wheeled him back to me. It took about another hour for the sedatives to wear off and for him to be able to get out of bed and get dressed. I felt so sorry for him...it was so painful! One time when he tried to get out of the bed, he just shook....so I helped him lay back down and covered him up for awhile again. I think we left the hospital around 2:30 PM and went and picked the kids up. He spent the rest of that day in bed....

  

  That evening Eric came over to change his bandages. For some reason it made me feel very lightheaded to look at those incisions and the blood!
  (His stomach looks so fat because they blew it up with air before surgery and it still hasn't all gone away yet! )

  

  This is how it looked yesterday....we took off the white strips and cleaned it up and put regular bandaids on all 3 incisions.

  

   He really wanted to go to work yesterday, but the pain meds where making him so sleepy. So, he went off of them to just taking Excedrin, which helped big time! He was able to go back to work today!   I'm glad to have this behind us. Now, just to keep him from overdoing it! I don't think that will be a problem!

   Thanks to:

   * The Drawbond's for kidsitting on Monday (and making soft pretzels with them!)
   * Eric M. for being willing to come change his bandages
   * Our kids for being good helpers and being quiet while Dan rested
   * Dr. Goodpaster for the successful surgery
   * All of you who prayed!!

  • 1:12 pm
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