Surgery-Update 1
Hi everyone. This is Peter, Katie's husband. I'll be updating her blog periodically today and throughout her stay in the hospital. First off, I wanted to tell everyone thank you for all of your support, prayers and encouragement! It has indeed had a very visable affect on our attitudes and a wonderful reminder of how we are in God's hands and he is in control of all things!
When Katie and I woke up this morning at 4:45 AM she was in great spirits. Humming and smiling, relaxed and ready to get going. We arrived at the hospital right at 6 AM and met with the anesthesiologist and then later her surgeon. The anesthesiologist gave her a run down of what all he was going to do. At one point he stopped and very frankly said, "this is one of the more painful surgeries we do". Katie didn't flinch. That brought me great comfort to know she's ready for this. It sounded like much of the pain will come from the fact that they will have to cut part of her rib so that it acts like a hinge, allowing access to the target area. During recovery, breathing will be painful because of the fractured rib. The lung will irritate it as it inflates and deflates. For the surgery they'll be deflating her left lung so that it doesn't get in the way so her right lung will be providing the oxgen to her body.
We have a monitor in the waiting room that shows us, generally, her status. When I left that lobby to write this update at ~8:50, it was still indicating she is in pre-op. Her Dr. said that once we see it indicate she's in surgery, it'll be ~4 hours. He told us not to expect to hear from him until somewhere between 12 PM - 1PM. We may have some updates from nurses prior to that but that's not certain.
Our experience at the hospital has been a great one so far. Everyone seems to be very kind, very competent and very communicative. Again, thank you for the prayers - keep praying! I'll update again soon.
When Katie and I woke up this morning at 4:45 AM she was in great spirits. Humming and smiling, relaxed and ready to get going. We arrived at the hospital right at 6 AM and met with the anesthesiologist and then later her surgeon. The anesthesiologist gave her a run down of what all he was going to do. At one point he stopped and very frankly said, "this is one of the more painful surgeries we do". Katie didn't flinch. That brought me great comfort to know she's ready for this. It sounded like much of the pain will come from the fact that they will have to cut part of her rib so that it acts like a hinge, allowing access to the target area. During recovery, breathing will be painful because of the fractured rib. The lung will irritate it as it inflates and deflates. For the surgery they'll be deflating her left lung so that it doesn't get in the way so her right lung will be providing the oxgen to her body.
We have a monitor in the waiting room that shows us, generally, her status. When I left that lobby to write this update at ~8:50, it was still indicating she is in pre-op. Her Dr. said that once we see it indicate she's in surgery, it'll be ~4 hours. He told us not to expect to hear from him until somewhere between 12 PM - 1PM. We may have some updates from nurses prior to that but that's not certain.
Our experience at the hospital has been a great one so far. Everyone seems to be very kind, very competent and very communicative. Again, thank you for the prayers - keep praying! I'll update again soon.
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