16 hours

From the time Brandy and I walked across the street yesterday to start 'the business' until the time I dropped her off at the front door and parked the car - 16 hours. That people, is a LOT of waiting. I felt like a little pathetic being as tired as I was last night after doing nothing but waiting all day, but I was exhausted!

But, let's start at the beginning...actually we'll back up to a little before the beginning. We arrived Thursday night and moved our small army into the patient housing, along with just a few things...yeah, not so few

We had a mask fashion show - my aunt is wearing 'the puppy dog' mask, my mom is wearing the 'darth vadar' and I'm wearing the 'platypus' . Pretty sweet

After that we headed to dinner, where they were very sweet to set us in our own room so my mom could take her mask off and eat comfortably. We came back and set up the beds...that was a bit of an experience. We thought that we had a pull out bed in addition to the normal bed. As it turned out, the pull out bed, was this weird thing where you pulled out the arm, not the bed, and then laid the pillows back down. Once we figured this out, we realized that only one person could sleep on that, which meant one person got to sleep on the recliner. My aunt found a little cubby hole in the sofa and decided if one of us was smaller we could sleep inside it and the other one on top :)

In the end, Brandy took the sofa, my aunt and mom took the bed, and I got the recliner. I honestly can sleep anywhere and thought this was not going to be an issue...that, was a mistake. I would say I got a quality 25 minutes sleep when I finally found a semi-comfortable position at about 4am :) My mom said at one point she got up to go to the bathroom and I was curled in a ball on the seat of the recliner...yeah, not comfortable. My aunt got the recliner last night, however she having slept on a number of chairs taking care of horses all night long knew the comfy spot that I didn't find until 4am and started out there. :)

So, the alarm (well actually the 3 alarms) went off at 5am, Brandy and I jumped up, threw on some clothes, brushed our teeth and walked across the street. Brandy headed into pre-op as soon as we arrived and I took a seat in the waiting room for what would be a very long day.

The updates throughout the day were not very exciting, and were pretty much covered with the pictures I sent from the phone. In short, I sat, Brandy puked, my mom ate, and my aunt watched a whole lot of Storm Chasers and Cash Cab. The one 'exciting' moment was when my mom got 'the riggers'. She is probably the only patient they have ever had who was excited she got the riggers. She is happy that she can now explain what it feels like. :) Thankfully because my aunt and mom are nurses they knew the textbook description of it and caught it early, so they let the nurses know early on. Riggers is a reaction your body has when you put blood of a different type into it. My mom is an O and my sister is a B, so they took out as many red blood cells as possible, but you can never take them all out. This is my mom post-riggers, she insisted on my aunt taking a picture, but my aunt being a sensible human being waited until after the action when she was sleeping off the drugs.
Notice, riggers or not my mom didn't really skip a beat, by the end of the day she was doing dishes...
My mom and aunt headed back to the room around 6:00, and I waited on...and waited, and waited and waited. And finally I headed back to get something to eat, took the car back so I could drive Brandy back, and waited again. Finally, at about 8:00 they called me back, I helped Brandy get dressed, the nurse took our her IVs and we were allowed to leave. We think that Brandy's body didn't like the morphine they gave her during surgery and it took 5 meds for nausea until they found one that worked.

So, the aftermath. Brandy on the couch...
my mom on the recliner...(obviously feeling fine)
This morning everyone is feeling much better. Brandy said she does feel like she was kicked in the butt by a horse, but with help from my aunt she has a little tylenol in her, and took a shower with a plastic wrapped butt and feels human again she says.

The caretakers, thanks to some coffee, and a good night sleep are feeling pretty good :)

Right now, we have the window open to watch the snow outside, Brandy is doing some crosswords, mom and Aunt Dona are about to head over for her check-up, and I'm going to go take a quick run in the snow. A) my swollen feet and tired of sitting legs need some exercise and B) I haven't seen snow in years, so why not? Happy Recovery everyone!