Surgery Day

Aaron here. The short version: As far as we can tell at this point, surgery was an unqualified success and Laura is recovering as well as we could have hoped. She immediately had muscle movement on the right side of her face, which was the thing she was most worried about.

The long version:

Almost as soon as we told him about the acoustic neuroma, my friend Ben offered to fly in from Chicago just to be with me for the day of surgery and told me to think about it. My initial thought was that it was too much for him to do, and that I would be OK, and thought I would tell him he did not need to. But the more I thought about it, the nicer it seemed, and though I almost felt guilty accepting, I ended up saying he should come. As the surgery got closer, the thought that Ben was going to be there with me became more and more comforting. Dean, Val, and Renae all had various kid duties the morning of the surgery, so right off the bat when Laura went to surgery I would have been alone for a bit if not for Ben, and he knew first-hand how miserable it can be to have to wait by yourself when your loved one heads off to surgery. Him coming just to sit with me all day was gigantically comforting and distracting in the best way, and it may be the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.

Laura and I both actually slept pretty well the night before surgery, though we hadn't been sleeping great since the diagnosis. I know I was just relieved that it was finally here, and even as scary as the surgery was, knowing it was finally time was in some ways more tolerable than just waiting and worrying. Laura, Ben (who had flown in the evening before), and I woke up around 5:15 and got ready. Dean and Val came over to be with the still sleeping kids at 5:45, and we headed to the hospital, where we arrived around 6:15. We went to our first waiting room of the day and Laura had a brief meeting with someone, and I really don't even know what that meeting was. Just checking in basically I guess. Then we moved to our second waiting room in the pre-op area. They took just Laura back for about 45 minutes before calling Ben and me back to see her. She had had some consults with the doc who would be doing all the nerve monitoring plus the neurosurgeon. Right away they said surgery, scheduled for 8:30, would be delayed due to a doctor's meeting going long, so we just hung out in that room until around 9:10. Laura was a little anxious but in good spirits and joking with the nurses. I felt a little ill from nerves for a minute when the anesthesiologist came in to go over with her what all he was going to do. Then everyone and everything was finally ready for her in the special MRI operating room, so we said our goodbyes and Ben and I headed for our third waiting room where we would spend most of the day.

Renae joined us at 9:30, and I felt pretty good as we camped out there for the next eight and a half hours. I don't think that would have been the case without Ben and Renae there. Sometimes my mind would try to picture what Laura was going through and get me scared, but most of the time I was just enjoying their company. I was also happy to be distracted by reading all the updates online about the Royals playoff game to be played that night. We got occasional surgery updates from the waiting room receptionists. The first one came at 11:00, saying that the actual surgery itself had just started, which seemed really late to me, but I guess was just the normal progression after the long process of anesthesia and nerve monitoring electrodes being placed in a number of spots. From there the updates became very general, that "everything was going fine." By around 2:00 or 2:30 I was a little antsy from the lack of any specific updates even though I knew that meant things were probably going smoothly. Then around 3:00 came a better update that the surgeon thought he was done and would soon be doing the MRI to make sure he really was. At 4:30, the surgeon himself came to talk to us and brought a print-out showing the pre- and post-op MRIs, which he stressed was for Laura because he knew she'd want to see it. Things had gone to plan, and though Laura was still under at this point, they could tell the muscle movement nerve was responsive. Relief!

Renae had to leave for kid duty at 5:30, so she never did see Laura the day of surgery, but I was sure glad to have her there. I was allowed into the recovery room to see her at 5:45, and I had no idea what to expect as far as how she'd look, but she smiled at me right away and I told her the right side of her face was smiling too and she was obviously thrilled, even through the narcotic fog. There was gauze covering her head so there was no shocking wound to see. A drain is staying in her head for a few days, but the gauze covered that too. I was relieved how good she looked so soon after such major surgery. We got to grin at each other and hold hands for a few minutes, and I really don't remember what we talked about. She was in some pain, and requested more meds, which helped quickly. Then the recovery room nurse got word that the neuro ICU was ready for her, so I headed back to the waiting room to gather Ben and our stuff so we could head to yet another waiting room.

I should have known better, but I was expecting this step to go quickly and that I'd see her again soon in the ICU, but of course there was another longish wait before Ben and I both got to see her at 7:00. She was in a lot of head pain at this point, which was tough to see, and she was saying things like, "Why won't they give me pain meds?" though she had some in her system and the nurses were hurrying to get her more. Each dose of meds takes effect remarkably quickly, so there's fast relief when she needs more. After she felt a little better she asked if the Royals game had started yet! I couldn't believe it, but it told me a lot about how together she was. I laughed and told her I wasn't too worried about it, but that it started in 10 minutes. They wanted to get her into a gown so kicked us out at 7:15. I decided I'd wait to see her one more time before heading to Dean and Val's to get the kids and go home. We saw her again roughly 8:00--8:15 and she said multiple times, "The meds are managing my pain."

Relieved and drained, Ben and I headed for the car after 14 hours at the hospital. We gathered up the kids, neither of whom had slept a wink, and got them both in bed by 9:30. As if I hadn't had a long enough day, I couldn't wait to start watching the Royals game, which I'd avoided hearing anything about, from the beginning. Of course it turned out to be the craziest game ever and five hours long, though I zipped through it in three thanks to fast forwarding. Royals win! Laura doing as well as we could have hoped. Not a day I'll soon forget.