So, after a year of waiting, Ian finally got his surgery on Tuesday.
To say it was a long day is an understatement.
We were both told he would be back on the ward in about 3 hours and he actually arrived back on the ward 8 hours later!!

To say I was going a little crazy was an understatement.
Both of the guys who went to surgery after Ian, were back on the ward while I was waiting for Ian to get back.
Every time the Health Care Assistant, who was looking after the bay, walked in, she said, “not back yet then?”.

She’s lucky I didn’t launch her through the window!

I finally got home just after 9pm. Effectively, a 17 hour shift!
Anyway, Ian was discharged and I went to collect him at lunchtime yesterday.

Anyway, Ian was kept on oxygen all night because the nurse doing his observations kept putting his oxygen saturation monitor on the same hand they were doing the blood pressure on! and wondering why his oxygen saturation was dropping! DOH!! Anyway, a nurse with a head on her shoulders took over in the morning and Ian was discharged pretty quickly.

I got some funny looks from the nurse in the discharge lounge as I interrupted her while I read through Ian’s discharge letter. I had a few niggly questions, that to be completely honest, I couldn’t be arsed to ask. The main questions were answered and we took our opportunity to leave.

We are now in a waiting game.
He is really mobile and handling pain well. The most pain is from the obvious wound from the operation itself. They went in from the front, by his eosophagus, trachea and voice box to get to his spine at the back!!
It turns out that the reason he was so long in surgery is that he had lots of calcinated bone, due to his arthristis, that they needed to drill through.
Unfortunately, this may have aggravated the nerve that they were trying to release.
This meant that he woke up in excruciating pain with increased numbness, and his arm was shaking uncontrollably.

His follow up is now 6 weeks instead of 12 weeks and the surgeon is ‘hopeful’ that the numbness in his arm will subside.

Ian is actually really mobile and I have noticed a difference in his comfort level already. He just seems to be on a bit of a downer because of the numbness. I’m going to have to crack the whip a little to get him to progress.

I’m back at work for just a day tomorrow and I’m not too worried about leaving him. My Mum will be around to check on him and all three of our girls will be around throughout the day.

The worst part is now over and we are in the recovery stage. I just hope that the numbness starts to wear off or Ian will have a really negative reaction and be on a mega downer!!

Time will tell.