Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Emergency to Surgery: Part 10

After our short nap and having some fabulous pizza delivered, we went right back to the hospital.

Thankfully, my mom arrived soon after, picked up the kids and brought me a couple of changes of clothes, just in case things didn't straighten out as soon as we thought they should.

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The next morning the doctor told us exactly how things weren't straightening out.  For starters, Anne-Marie would be there until at least Monday (two more days), and if the infection that was found in the CT scan didn't get better, they would send her into emergency surgery.

We begged them to give us more time to let the antibiotics kill the infection.  Surely by Monday things would regulate enough for us to go home.  Anne-Marie already had a surgery planned a few months later and didn't want to go to the OR for a completely unrelated reason.  Everyone on the medical team assured us they would keep a close watch on the infection problem to see if we could make it out of there without anybody getting cut open.

They moved, Anne-Marie from the special care wing to a regular room and told me I could have a rollaway bed to sleep on for as long as Anne-Marie was a patient there.  (That's more like it.)

From there, it was all about waiting and going to the cafeteria every couple of hours.

The antibiotics were effective throughout the day and then stalled that evening.

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The next morning (Sunday), Anne-Marie's doctor, Dr. Shannon Colohan, sent us the message we didn't want to hear.  The antibiotics weren't going to be enough and Anne-Marie would need to go into surgery right away.  Because it was Sunday, the OR had an opening in exactly 45 minutes.

Of course we were a little shocked, but decided to go ahead with allowing them to physically remove the infection.  Our mental preparation time was shortened, but so was the dreadful anticipation. We knew that the surgery would significantly speed up, not only the removal of the infection, but--if the doctors were to be believed--the recovery process, as well.

45 minutes later, we were in the only people in an OR staging room set up for 40 patients.

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