So. I left you all in the surgery holding room.
As I said yesterday, it was less traumatizing sending Brady into surgery than it was for his spinal surgery. It went a long way to be able to be with him up until he went to the operating room. It probably went as smoothly as it could’ve gone. So without being tooooo terribly brave, I walked out of the room fairly confidently and headed towards my next plan. Because you’d better believe I had a plan in place, haha!
First, I contacted Carrie, my good friend who works at the hospital, and let her know Brady was in and I was free. I wandered a little bit and when I heard back from Carrie, we made a plan to have a coffee. I am SO grateful for her, and also her department of caring people who were understanding of her taking a longer break than usual to be with me 💜
We coffeed for a while, and my mind was occupied, which helped a lot. But alas, Carrie is a real adult and has a real job, and she had to go back to it. So she did, and I went onto the next thing I had planned for my morning wait. Crocheting!
I went out to my vehicle and sorted through the bag of crocheting I had brought along. I realized immediately my error. I forgot my crochet hook! And my scissors!! ACK! I had yarn and that was it! Shooooot!
So back inside I went. I waited until all the little shops were open, and sadly, no one had crochet hooks. I swear I had seen them once in a previous stay, but no dice. Not that day, anyway. I weighed my options, and decided to head to Michaels. I had time, and I didn’t want to be idle for that long.
I had success at Michaels!
Accidentally too much success…
I also bought a pattern of what I wanted to start making. A new blanket 🙂 As usual.
Back at the hospital, I crocheted for a little while, and watched true crime on my phone. I did this until I got twitchy. Around 11:30 maybe. I had been tipped off that Brady was expected to be in the OR until about noon, and the anesthesiologist had pointed a waiting area out to me. I decided to meander my way over there for a change of scenery.
A few minutes before noon, Dr. Fourney called me. He told me that they were done, Brady handled the procedure without any scares or surprises. He told me it could not have gone better. He advised me to give it an hour, maybe two, for Brady to be moved into an observation room up in the neuro ward, and I was more than welcome to meet him there. Perfect. I thanked him profusely, and we hung up!
Still more waiting idle time to fill! Onto the next thing on my list. A really really yummy lunch!
You’ll have to take my word for it. Its a cafeteria burger, and it doesn’t look like anything special, but this particular burger is SO good. I think its the brioche bun. Its just crazy delicious to a point where I actually anticipated it. YUM!
I waited the appropriate amount of time before I stuck my head up into the ward, but he wasn’t on site yet. I tried to leave but was reassured I could take a seat and someone would make a call for me.
Thus began a three hour wait up in the observation area of neuro. Brady was too drowsy to transfer our of recovery. Oddly tired. Too tired. They didn’t like it, and sent him for reassessment and a CT. So that was stressful. I had the people from the recovery ward call me and say it’ll be another hour at least, but when I tried to leave, the lovely nurses insisted that I was not at all in their way and I was very welcome to stay there. They dragged a comfier chair over to where I was sitting, and I set up camp 💜 It was SO nice. Like I found my space where I could be restful and content, but close by, and with people I could talk to. It was just the perfect balance of all the things I needed.
Brady was supposed to surface around 1pm, but finally, around 5pm, up he came. CT deemed that he was so extra drowsy from the drugs and nothing else
💜 Oof. My sleepy, loaded, recovering, husband had made it.
🚨 Blood alert 🚨
Brady was completely drugged, and barely coherent. Our awesome nurse came over and gave me the heads up that she was gonna wake him. She loudly called to him and rubbed his chest a bit. He barely opened his eyes, but he did just enough to respond to her and make eye contact with me. Never have I felt more reassured 💜 He followed instructions – lifting and wiggling what he could, and even knowing the date! Though he fell asleep every three seconds or so, and needed to keep being woken up, haha! I held his hand, and at one point when I let go, he reached for me again. I loved that.
I lingered until it was definitely time to go. Around 7pm, if I remember right. I leaned over and gave him a little kiss, which he returned. I told him I loved him and would see him the next day. He was already back to sleep. I knew he wouldn’t miss me 💜 which was ideal. Just sleep that all off, honey.
And he did! And the next day carried a very warm reception 💜 But I’ll tell you about that another time 😘