5/13/15 Chuck’s report
Figured I should send out a report on Lorraine’s latest procedure and how she is fairing. First, we would like to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and calls, much appreciated.
Short version of this note is: Lorraine came through this with flying colors. She doesn’t show any signs of bleeding at the aneurysms and didn’t have any disorientation except when she woke up this morning after getting about 1 1/2 hours of sleep. She has had a headache almost continually since her last procedure about 15 days ago but she didn’t have one yesterday and just a mild one today. She said she isn’t in any pain except for the incision site and where they took blood and had the IV inserted in her arm.
She is on “limited duty” for a few days, not lifting anything over 10#, no exercise except for walking, that kind of stuff. Nothing new there, after all of her surgeries over the years, we’ve gone though this many times before.
The longer version is Lorraine had to be at the hospital by 6:15 AM and the procedure was scheduled to start at 8:00. We got there about 6:10 and walked in with the nurse who was just getting to work, she was the pre-op nurse so of course things got started a bit later than planned. But no problem, the paperwork was completed, Lorraine prepped with the IV started and ready to go by 7:45. They wheeled her out just before 8:00 and told me she would be going to the recovery room in about 2 hours.
I walked around the hospital to get my bearings, trying to figure out where things were located when I saw the doctor walking towards the operating room about 8:20. I has a short conversation with him and told him to take good care of Lorraine. He said he was reviewing her records and was ready to go.
I was in the waiting room around 9:30 when the pre-op nurse stopped by to say she was told they were almost done and if I waited in the hallway I could see Lorraine as she left the operating room headed for the recovery room. So that’s what I did.
About 15 minutes later Lorraine was wheeled by and they stopped so I could see her. She was pretty much out of it but she was able to say HI and looked good. She then spent the next hour in recovery, I couldn’t go in there but I did find out she was going to be admitted to the ICU room in a newer section of the hospital.
The doctor came out about 10 minutes later and stopped to give me an update, finally something official. He said the operation went extremely well, no problems at all. He was able to completely fill one aneurysm and prepped the other one, just like planned. He said Lorraine didn’t have any issues and he didn’t expect any problems but she would be staying at least overnight in the ICU, again as planned.
Shortly after noon, I was able to see Lorraine in her room, she was mostly awake, knew where she was and what was happening. The nurse had a list of questions that Lorraine had to answer, I guess to get a baseline of her awareness and to see if she was having any symptoms or problems as time progressed. She wasn’t disorientated at all except she couldn’t keep awake and would still fall asleep, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. I was surprised to see she was in a private room, I’m used to seeing ICU rooms being really open with not much privacy, nothing like these.
The ICU nurse was great, stopped by and checked Lorraine often throughout the first 3 or 4 hours. Of course she was hooked up to all kinds of machines and they were beeping and had lights flashing. Every time one would sound an alarm the nurse would stop by to check and make sure everything was fine.
Lorraine was hungry and thirsty after not having had anything to eat/drink since the night before. They started out slowly, letting her have very small sips of water first. Throughout the afternoon she progressed to where she able to eat crackers and drink a soda. But she still had to keep her leg still, wasn’t supposed to move it for 6 hours after the procedure.
Lorraine did get to order dinner and that showed up about 5:30, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and a dessert. She pretty much cleaned the plate, like I said, she was hungry.
Susy and Katie came by to see Lorraine and I went down to the cafeteria with them for our dinner. They had to leave not too long afterwards as Katie had homework to do and needed to get to bed.
I think it was about 8:30 when I left her and headed back to our coach. Our dog was at Susy’s r the day and that night so I didn’t have to run out to take care of her, that was a good thing and sure helped. So once I got back, I checked email and such then called it a day, a long day.
I got to the hospital about 7:05 this morning and found they had the ICU area closed to visitors during the nurse’s turnover and I couldn’t get in. About 7:30 someone opened the doors with their employee badge and I walked in but was stopped by a nurse and told I had to leave and couldn’t come back until after 8. But Lorraine’s nurse came by and said she was ok with me being there and I could stay.
Lorraine told me she had a bad night. She couldn’t sleep and they couldn’t/wouldn’t give her anything to help because they didn’t want to “mask” any issues she may experience. She said it was about 4 AM when she was just starting to nod off when of course someone came in to check on her and draw blood. Guess she had problems, tried three different places before she finally got enough.
When I got there she was eating her breakfast and she said it was good, pancakes and scrambled eggs. The nurse stopped by to explain what had happened over the night and said she thought Lorraine would probably be moved to a regular hospital room later. I was surprised especially seeing as how Lorraine hadn’t shown any signs of problems yesterday or during the night.
I asked her to check into that seeing as how we thought it would only be an overnight stay. She checked with the doctor on duty and came back to say Lorraine would be released soon, not moved to another room, yea.
About 11:30 we had all the paperwork signed, all the machines unhooked, the IV removed and Lorraine changed back to street clothes vs those beautiful hospital gowns. They put her in a wheel chair and headed downstairs where had the car waiting.
We stopped by Susy’s place and picked up our dog, guess she is getting old and doesn’t like being away from home as she didn’t eat much while she was there. But once we got back, she headed for her food and water dish just like normal.
Lorraine got set up and rested on the couch. But she wasn’t able to stay down very long, she felt she just had to do this or that. Finally I had her sit down and I headed out to pick up Katie from school. Katie and Lorraine were sure happy to see one another when we got back, lots of hugs.
Susy brought in BBQ dinner for all and then they had to make a trip back to Katie’s school for an open house. Lorraine is trying to get caught up on email and facebook.
Ok, I just wanted to give an update, not write a regular blog. Susy has sent out a couple of notes on facebook but I’m sure some folks who read this don’t follow on Lorraine’s facebook and maybe wanted to hear how everything went.
Also want to give all our good thoughts and prayers to our BIL John. He had surgery today in Seattle and last time Lorraine talked to her sister, they were heading home after a LONG surgery for him. Wishing you all the best John, hope this solves all your problems and you get back to normal soon.
Thanks Chuck
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