Surgery Day

5:30pm - Grammy and her friend, Diane, visited about 4:15. Cody showed up soon after that because Connie wanted some Cadbury Easter Eggs. Dinner showed up about 5:15 and she also had a small hit of drugs as her pain level crept up to 4/5. Still fighting nausea. She has been up once to use the restroom too, which is a good sign.


4:00pm - Connie had a breathing specialist come in to give her a breathing device so she would take 10 long deeps breaths (in a row) each hour.

2:00pm - Right after my last post I was invited into the recovery room to sit with Connie and feed her ice chips. There was a shortage of available rooms, so we had to wait it out there. Her pain level has been a 3 or below as long as she's not moving. Nausia is her biggest problem, as a result of all the medications. By 2:15pm we made it to her room and got settled in. It is 2:35 right now and she is going to try and get some more rest.

12:45pm - Connie has been in recovery for quite awhile now. Should be getting close to being able to go in and see her.

11:25am - Dr. Ferguson has come out and reported that everything went great with his part of the surgery. A retractor and drains have been installed and she can't use her left arm for doing anything strenuous for several days. He will stop by and check on her later today, and then again in the morning before she leaves. She is currently in recovery and will probably be there around an hour.


10:35 - Rocky just showed up in the waiting room. He's a 5 year old St. Bernard who they bring in each Tuesday to give people a little break from having to wait for those in surgery...kind of breaks things up a little bit. He is HUGE! Fire alarms are now going off for the third time!

10:15am - There is a fire emergency in the building...we are being told to evacuate the building...do not use the elevators. Crap! What are they going to do with Connie in the middle of surgery? Some of the people are saying there's no way they are leaving as they have family in surgery too. The warnings are still going on 5 minutes later, but we have been told it is just a drill. Finally they have stopped. That just isn't nice!!!

9:53am - Just spoke with Dr. Price. No sign of cancer in the initial review of the nodes!!!!!!!!!! All went well. Dr. Ferguson has taken over from here to begin the reconstructive surgery.

8:30am - We have been at the hospital for two hours now, going through registration for the 50th time (it seems). Connie got dressed in her gown and pants, gave a blood and urine sample (tmi?) and was wheeled up to the second floor where we got even less time to say good-bye than we did with Kyle when he left for his mission. I was ushered down the hallway to the waiting room and found one of the two plugs in the room to blog. They have told us they have about 4 hours blocked out for surgery. Sad to say that there was very little blue from the dye...kind of disappointing.