6 Hours

Momma got to the hospital just in time for the spinal surgeon's residents to come up and go over the surgery with us one more time before heading down. They said that they would be removing as much tumor mass as possible without damaging the spinal cord, and would be reinforcing his T2 through T8 vertebrae with steel because the tumors had made those bones very breakable and deteriorated. They compared what the tumors had done to the bones to the effects of osteoporosis, except that Daddy is only 54 and is otherwise healthy, besides all of these tumors his evil kidneys are causing. Momma and I walked down to the OR with Daddy until they told us that we couldn't go any farther. Momma said her good lucks and I love yous without dropping a tear, then I leaned in and kissed Daddy on the head and told him that we'd be waiting for him and that he's te best Daddy in the whole wide world and that I love him to the moon and back.





Momma and I did not know that there was a surgical waiting room, no one told us anything about it. We only knew that Daddy would be coming back to the same room he was in pre op, so we decided to set up shop there and his nurses said that they would come with updates. I eventually decided that even though we weren't hungry, that we needed to eat. So I went down to the main floor of the hospital and got us some salads and Muscle Milk, figured we would at least get nutrition without forcing ourselves too much. When I got back to the room, Momma was passed out in her chair, so I decided to start texting Ken and my family and trying to get my mind off of things. It took three hours for us to get our first update, the nurses said that things were going well... Another two hours and we hadn't heard a thing, so Momma started hugging the nurses to get us updates, but of course it was change of shift and none of them even knew that one of their patients was on surgery. Once they got ahold of the OR they said that the surgeons were closing up and that it had all gone well and that he would be in the recovery room waiting to wake up in about an hour and then come back up here. Six hours for this surgery, we were told it'd only take about four. When Daddy finally came back up to his room, he was on a respirator and still asleep. The transport staff told us that the new crew of nurses did not tell the recovery room nurses that Daddy had a room already, so he was done in 4 hours, but spent 2 hours lying down there because of lack of communication. The recovery nurses thought that Daddy was waiting to be admitted when a room opened up, but he already had a room!! Momma was beyond frustrated, and of course the nurse that lied to us about his updates was nowhere to be found. Once Momma calmed down, we were both able to relax and just enjoy the fact that Daddy had survived the 6 hour ordeal and that all of his vital numbers looked very stable. Momma decided to stay the night and I reluctantly went home and somehow found a way to fall asleep.



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