Well, its been 3 weeks and 4 days since Josh's surgery. For those who just want an update on him without reading the whole post--he is doing great and is back to work. For those who want the WHOLE story--read on.
Tuesday, March 13th we went to St. Joseph's Hospital for Josh's pre-op stuff. We checked in and after a bit of waiting were taken back to see Storm, Dr. White's scheduling lady. She went over lots of paperwork and information and told us what would be done that day up in the pre-op center {some bloodwork, an EKG and a chest x-ray}. She took us on a little tour of the hospital so we knew where to be the following morning. She was the fastest walker I have ever met {my waddle could not keep up with her fast pace}. We ended our tour up pre-op where we were handed off for them to take it from there. They gave us a million papers to fill out {on top of the ones Storm had already given us} so for the next little while we sat and filled out papers. Finally, someone came and talked to us about the paperwork regarding billing. Then we were taken back to a little cubical type room with a curtain. A nurse and a student came in to draw some blood to test for blood type and to make sure Josh wasn't sick at all. Another nurse came in and went over more paperwork and what to expect the following day. Then she went and showed the Dr all of Josh's information and he said we could go. We were told Josh would be getting a chest x-ray and EKG so I was a little hesitant to just leave without making sure he didn't need those done. We went back down to see Storm and told her what happened, she was a little confused as well because those two things were ordered by Dr. White. She called up there and talked to the Dr and he said because Josh is so young and otherwise healthy he didn't feel it was necessary for them to be done. Storm relayed the message to us and said that if Dr. White has a problem with that Josh would just get them done quickly in the morning before surgery. So we left.
Tuesday night. How do I even begin to describe how I felt. Let's just say I was nervous and anxious. Josh...not so much. He got in bed and was asleep in a matter of seconds. Me...not so much. I cleaned and cleaned and re-arranged and cleaned some more...anything to keep my mind of what was coming just a few short hours away. Literally. By the time I finally decided to try to sleep it was an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Probably not the smartest idea. Oh well.
We woke up, got ready, and were out the door at 5am. We walked up to the pre-op center to check in. There were probably 8-10 people waiting in front of us. We got checked in and taken back to one of the little rooms with a curtain. Josh changed into his gown and was given all of his hospital bracelets. His surgery was scheduled for 7:30 so there was a little bit of waiting. I hate waiting. Josh's parents came awhile later. I am so grateful they were able to drive down from Utah to be there with us. Dr. White came in and talked with us for a bit. The resident assisting in the surgery came in and talked to us. The OR nurse came in and talked to us. Then the anesthesiologist came in and talked to us and told us it was time to say our goodbyes. That was the moment I was dreading. That was the moment I thought I was going have a super hard time with. But, I actually was okay. Don't get me wrong, it was super hard seeing him wheeled off in his bed. They had given us a pager that would update throughout the surgery and off we went to the waiting room. It was about 7:30am. So we waited. And waited. At about 9:30 we got our first page. Surgery had begun. Seriously!? Two hours after they took him away and they just started. We were told the surgery would take 2-4 hours and then another hour or 2 for Josh to wake up and get to his room. So we waited some more. Oh, you may be wondering where Avery is during all this. Coincidentally, my mom had spring break so she was nice enough to keep Avery. {Thanks mom! You have NO idea how much you helped by keeping Avery.} They {my mom and Avery} came to the hospital to wait for a bit with us. We went down and had lunch in the cafeteria. After lunch we hurried back up to the waiting room to see if the pager went off with any messages. Just a few minutes later Dr. White came in and said surgery was over and went as expected. He thought he got all of the tumor out and said we would be able to see Josh in another hour or two. This was about 12:30pm. We stayed in the neurosurgery waiting room for another hour and a half and then moved to the ICU waiting room on the 4th floor. The nurse called a couple times during our wait to give me an update and said Josh was doing great, still just waking up from surgery. Finally, about 2:30pm we were able to go see him in the Neuro ICU. He was hooked up to all sorts of machines and swollen from surgery. It was such a relief to finally see him and KNOW that he was okay, but seeing him still out of it and in pain was kinda hard. Really hard, actually. I stayed with him all day and by night time he was doing so much better. His swelling had already gone down quite a bit and he seemed a lot more himself...still in lots of pain though. I went home for a few hours to sleep and got back to the hospital around 6am. Just over night he seemed to get a whole lot better. The Dr. and his assistant came in sometime that morning to pull out Josh's packing. He made me go sit on the couch across the room in case it started to bleed and I fainted. I really wanted to see though, I was kinda upset. Josh said it was one of the most painful things ever. His packing was about 3 inches of rolled up gauze stuffed up his nose. He had a slight nose bleed for a bit, but nothing I couldn't have handled up close. Oh well. We were told he would be taken to get a MRI to make sure all the tumor was removed so they wouldnt let Josh eat or drink anything until that happened. They just kept pushing the time back. The rest of the day we just hung out in the ICU. That evening they said he was being discharged from the ICU and moved to another floor when they had an available room. My mom brought Avery to visit for a little bit, but after awhile she got a little crazy so they had to leave. I left late that night to go home and around midnight Josh was moved to the neuro acute unit floor. When I got there the next morning they said he would most likely be discharged that day. After a couple visits from the Doctors we packed up all our stuff and headed home around 1:30pm.
Like I said before, Josh is doing great and you wouldn't even be able to tell this all just happened a few weeks ago. We have since had a follow up appointment and everything seems to look great. Oh, he did have to get an echo to check on his heart, but that is just routine. He needs to get some blood work done this week and get an ultrasound of his thyroid and then we don't go back to the Dr till June. At that time he will get another MRI to make sure everything still looks good.
I think that covers most of it. I am now 35 weeks and 2 days. Not much longer to go!
