I’m back in Florida, the place where I was born and raised. I got here on Wednesday afternoon and Mom had surgery on Thursday morning.
We had a little stress before I left because the orthopedist didn’t cast Wild Man’s arm on Monday. He wasn’t thrilled about how the XRays looked, so he scheduled a CT scan on Tuesday to decide whether or not he wanted to do surgery and put a plate across the fracture. We didn’t hear until Wednesday (when I was already in Florida) that the CT looked OK, but the doctor wanted to keep a close eye on the healing of the fracture. Wild Man got a cast placed on Friday and has another visit with the doctor on Monday. Whew!
Mom had her surgery Thursday morning. It was supposed to take 2 – 2 1/2 hours and be done completely through the laparascope, although the surgeon said that he might need to do the procedure open (with an incision into the abdomen) if it was more complex than he expected. Well, it took 3 1/2 hours because Mom has lots of scar tissue in her abdomen. This wasn’t completely unexpected because Mom knew about the scar tissue from previous surgeries.
What was unexpected was that her anticipated 1 1/2 hour recovery room time took 4 hours! Apparently, she wasn’t taking deep enough breaths, so they weren’t ready to send her out to her room, even a monitored room. (What was a little distressing for us was that no one came and explained why it took so long. Not taking deep enough breaths is a lot different than having complex ventricular arrhythmias or something like that. We would have been much more comfortable if we had had a clue of what was going on.) Eventually, Mom got moved to a room and was settled in.
Since then, she’s been progressing quite well. I’ve been sitting with her for several hours each day until today. I got a migraine Thursday night and it still hasn’t gone completely away, so I’m just vegetating and watching football games today.
Some things I’ve noticed around here:
- My mom is in the same hospital where I was born. That feels kind of strange. Everything else has changed so much, but that hospital is still there, even if it has been extensively renovated.
- It takes me as long to get from my parent’s house to the hospital as it does to get from my house (in WI) to my daughter’s college (in Steven’s Point, WI). So, visiting my mom every day is like driving to my daughter’s college every day.
- I remember a lot of the roads that I drive to get around, but most of them are a lot bigger with a lot more traffic. The road that was a 2 lane road right near our house, is now a six lane highway.
- Traffic laws aren’t even suggestions around here. I grew up driving around here and am a bit aggressive for our small town in WI, but am positively timid compared to the drivers here.
- It’s HOT in Florida. Just a reminder.
- I’ve had Dunkin Donuts and Chick-Fil-A since I’ve been here. I’m happy.
We’re still praying for Mom’s continued good recovery. I hope to be back at the hospital tomorrow and, hopefully, Mom will come home in the middle of the week next week. I’m doing lots of knitting and reading. Once she gets home, I’ll do some cooking and put things in the freezer for the next couple of weeks.
While I’ve been here, Wild Man has been busy. For some reason, YouTube won’t embed in my blog, so I’ll just leave the links here. He’s trying to become famous before I come home. I wish him luck. (They’re worth watching – he’s hysterical!!)
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