A Bag of Mind Occupiers

So Brad was off to surgery at 8:30. The moment he was out of eye sight my emotions tried to take over my brain. All the things that could go wrong.....it was pretty horrible.

I'm glad I wasn't there alone. Granted my Father in Law wasn't my top choice as a companion (sorry Tim!) I'm really glad he came. If I hadn't have had someone to save face for I might have sat and just cried.

Waiting for that pager to go off was brutal. Just hoping for an update. But then, when it did go off, that sudden fear of what it would say sunk in.

Thankfully along with the FIL I brought a bag of mind occupiers with me- definitely a must have for the waiting room patient. Keep as busy as possible was my way to go. And being a woman and so spectacular at multi-tasking it took a lot to try to shut that crying voice in my head off. So I facebooked, while watching TV shows on Hulu while crocheting a few hats (3 to be exact all with more then one color of yarn in it and 1 with ears!). I had a book to read but doing just one task was not working for me.

Waiting for the first page wasn't as hard as all the others. I knew the first page would be when the first incision was actually made prior to that they were just wrapping his teeth with wires. That first page took about 2 hours to receive. Then, the long haul really began.

We went to the Cafeteria for breakfast but by lunch we didn't want to vacate our seats so I went up and brought us food back. Dinner, well dinner was just forgotten about.

Every few hours as promised there was an update on the pager. "Patient is doing well, Patient is doing well but taking longer then expected..." That last one sent my mind even more into overdrive. I tried to chalk it up to the 2 hours of wiring his teeth but still after that it was taking a long time. They said 5 hours and by now it was 4pm, so the 5 hours was past.

Then around 5 pm I looked up to see his surgeon standing at our table- looking pleased. Hurray!

Everything went well, they were able to move his jaw out 12mm which is the furthest they could so they were very pleased with that, he lost the expected about of blood, one liter (wow that is a lot!), he was coming around slowly and I would be able to see him soon (in the recovery area and not in ICU!), he is off the breathing tube the swelling wasn't too bad.

Ah relief, it was over....yet, it really was just the beginning...