God is Gracious Again

Bob's Tower of IV Medicines

It’s been a long day already, & it’s not even evening yet!  Kristie picked my dad up at 5:00 a.m. To take him to the hospital for his surgery.  It doesn’t sound like he slept all that well.  How could you?  As soon as he got here they started prepping him for the surgery.  Connie arrived & said he got kinda loopy from the meds they give him to relax him.  I was almost at the hospital at 6:55 when my sisters called & told me they already took him back.  Drat!  I wanted to pray with him before he went to the OR. 

Connie, the Wizard of the Emerald City, was able to interpret the information on the surgery screen, so we knew when they started anesthesia, when they had everything prepped, when the surgeon started cutting... 

We got the call to go into a consultation room at around 12:30.  Dr. Sowden walked into the room with both thumbs up & a smile on his face!  The surgery went without a hitch.  He looked at the aneurysm & noticed that it was smaller than first stated.  He measured it at 4.5 MM.  Typically he wouldn’t do anything to an aneurysm that is smaller than 6 mm.  He said he wasn’t sure he would even call it an aneurysm.  He called it a post stenotic dilatation, which is caused by the bad valve.  Theoretically, once you fix the leaky valve, the dilatation shrinks & become a non-issue.  Dr. Sowden also cut two large holes in the pericardium, to drain the fluid amassed around his heart.  He hopes these two windows will remain open so that any fluid that forms between the pericardium & heart wall will be able to drain effectively.

What great news!  He expects him to make a swift, full recovery!  Praise God for His healing power!  The rest of today is going to be critical.  He is in the CCCU for the first 24 hours post-op.  We went back to see him.  The first thing we had to do was fix his hair!  As we were warned, his face was puffy & his skin was an odd color.  He was covered completely except for his face.  He had a endotracheal tube from the vent machine that was helping him breathe.  It was taped into his mouth.  He was surrounded by tube after tube after tube!  His IV pole was more like an IV tower!  So much stuff attached to him from all sides.  As we talked with his nurse, he heard our voices, opened his eyes & tried to talk.  His blood pressure shot up, so we tried to soothe him & calm him down by holding his hand, stroking his arm, talking to him & reminding him that he’s OK.  We told him he had to go back to sleep so he could rest.  I said he needed to sleep so he could dream of his one true love, my mom.  Slowly he settled down & went back to sleep. 

His nurse told us that he will be weaned off of the vent this evening with the goal of having him breathing on his own again before night.  He has an external pace maker right now, just as a precaution.  The doctor will have that removed when he is confident that his heart has reached a stable rhythm.  He has 3 chest tubes to drain blood & fluid from his chest cavity. 

Please continue to pray for Bob as he recovers from surgery.  We know he will be in significant pain for a while.  Pray that he will be patient with himself & the healing process.  You know how he hates to be out of the action!  I will provide periodic updates about his recovery.  To ensure that you are notified when I make a new post, please go to the bottom of this page & click on “SubscribeTo:”

Thank you for your prayers on behalf of my dad & his family.  We are so grateful that God has given us at least a little more time with our father!