Done Yesterday

( to.done 20090225 )

I'm getting a little better about noticing emotions, even if most of them are still negative. Our experience at Kaiser involved quite a lot of frustration because drawing blood from a PICC line has to be done in the infusion clinic, not the lab. Grump.

Some good singing in the evening. People really seem to like pocketnaomi's "A Tribute to the Middle-Aged Bear". That's good; so so I. They'll make a perfect pairing in concerts.

Colleen: the end in sight?

After going to bed early and spending a restless night, we got up at 5:30 this morning to get Colleen to the hospital for her surgery. They'll have to put in the epidural when she's a little more sedated; she was pretty stressed and fearful this morning.

Surgery is scheduled to take about 6 hours, starting about now. Luckily, Kaiser has WiFi in the caffeteria. I'll be in touch. (10:30 There's also WiFi in the waiting room. Yay!)

Colleen: surgery in progress: ok so far

Just had a brief consultation with an OB/GYN surgeon who had been called in to take a look at her ovarian cyst, which is about 10cm (estimating from his hand gestures). So that side goes for sure; I told him that Colleen and I had discussed this, and that she'd prefer that they take out the other one as well because of the downstream risk. It's not as if she's planning to use it again...

Other than that, things are going well. Everything seems straightforward. The surgeon said she'd probably still be here on Monday when we get the pathology report back; I'm guessing she'll be out Monday or Tuesday if her recovery goes well.

11:40 Taking out the ovaries was a slam-dunk; they appear to be done with the bowel resection and working on the hernia repair. So they might even be done early.

Colleen: surgery successful

Just a quick note to say that the surgeon came out to tell me that Colleen's surgery was completely successful. She's lost a couple of feet of small intestine, and had a "Swiss cheese" of little hernias consolidated and patched over with a large hunk of biomesh.

Happy bear.

Colleen: In her room

As of about 5 minutes ago, Colleen's out of post-op and ensconced in Room 2354A. Next to her bed are two chairs and a window overlooking the caffeteria two floors below. There is WiFi She will be a happy Cat as soon as I bring over her Eee. Happy bear.