Surgery and Recovery

Due to Anna's congestion, they decided to perform sinus surgery on Monday evening to clear up the congestion. Additionally, while they were in there, they wanted to do a biopsy to confirm the buildup was not Leukemic cells. The surgery was scheduled for 7:30pm on Monday night, but didn't get started until a little later. I was able to get over to the hospital before everything started, so we spent a little time together. I could tell she was a bit nervous as this was the first time for this procedure and it was full blown anesthesia and they wind up going up your noise, down your throat and it doesn't exactly sound like a lot of fun. When we were in the holding area for the Operating Room waiting for the Doctor, I think the nurse was making both of us a bit nervous. She needed to receive a fax with her marching orders, but after replacing the paper, she couldn't get the fax to work again. She had opened the top part, and couldn't figure out how to close it again. Seeing her struggle to close up the fax really made me question whether or not I wanted her to be involved in anything surgical with Anna. I realize it's not her thing, but you'd like to think she could close the damn fax machine. After watching her struggle for about 5 mins she asked for help, and I had the fax working in about 15 seconds. I asked if I should scrub up for surgery, but I don't think she got it.
 
By the time the Doctor was done with surgery and came to find me, it was pretty close to 10:30pm. She looked pretty beat up, had a fair bit of swelling, a steady flow of blood coming from her nose, and was a little bit out of it. It was nice that i was able to sit with her while she recovered. After a while, we went back to 5300 and they wound up moving her to a better room, so that was a nice surprise. Unfortunately, they got a little mixed up in her antibiotics and pain meds, etc so because Anna was a little out of it, I stuck around pretty late and wound up getting home close to 3am. I didn't want to leave until I knew everything was settled and under control for the night.
 
Today, she was in much better shape by the time I went to the hospital. She had a pretty good amount of energy, the bleeding had stopped, and the swelling was pretty minimal. Also, the pain from the congestion that she had been having had completely subsided. So, she's on the road to recovery.
 
Emotionally, she was doing really well tonight. She's managed to keep her spirits up through all this. Unfortunately, there's someone else in the unit who will likely be passing soon. I think the priest was there last night. The family has been camped out for a few days. We don't really know them but we know their faces, we know why they are there, and we know that look in their eyes all too well. It's sad to watch. We wish them all the best and will be thinking about them.