Feeling some relief knowing my husband was in the recovery room, I briefly left to go get that much needed cup of tea. Now my head filled with happy cheerful thoughts. It was over, or so I thought. I called everyone with the update.
Tea finished and bum numb from sitting so long, I got up and walked around but never wandered far from the unit entrance. Another hour and a half went by and still no husband. Then, one of the nurses from the unit came out and asked if I was Tori? She said that Neil's doctor had told them to take me downstairs to the Recovery room so that I could sit with him. He was not ready to be moved up to his room yet and they knew I had been sitting there all day. She told me they don't usually allow family in the Recovery room so I felt rather special.
Once in the Recovery room I was given a chair to sit beside the stretcher. Neil was in and out of consciousness but very happy to see me. He had tubes everywhere which was to be expected. There was a team of healthcare workers around him from the ICU and Neurology. Neil was telling them that he felt his legs were going numb. They checked and did not seem concerned as he had bags on his legs that blow up with air and then released the air, and then did it again. This is to help with circulation after a surgery. They told me they were monitoring him closely as he gave them a scare while on the operating table. Apparently, at one point they had to resuscitate him!! When I heard this I was in shock. What I now wondered was what else had happened that no one had told us about yet?
People can be so funny when they are coming out from being under an anesthetic. There was a female doctor standing and working beside Neil for some time, but then she moved on and shortly thereafter a male doctor took her place. At this point, Neil opened his eyes and drew his head back and with a strange look on his face said, "Weren't you just a girl? You don't look like a girl?" The doctor ignored him and carried on with what he was charting. They are very used to people coming out of anesthetic and knew he would most likely not remember the conversation is five minutes. Suddenly, I noticed Neil's left hand start to twitch slightly. Then from his elbow down it began twitching. I tried to get the nurses attention. All of a sudden, his whole arm from the shoulder down started violently twitching. Neil kept repeating..."I'm not doing that...I'm not doing that." The nurse very politely, but quickly escorted me out of the room and said she had to call Neurology to come back. She suggested I go have supper and he would be brought upstairs as soon as possible. Like I could eat now! Not! I went back upstairs and again waited by the unit door.
My daughter was back and we sat together. She knows her mom well and brought me another cup of tea. Another hour and a half passed before they finally wheeled Neil onto the unit and down to his room. We very briefly were allowed to see him. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him I would be back as the nurses needed some time with him now and I had to get out of their way. They took another half hour. Well if I am remembering correctly we had come to the hospital at 6:30 am and it was now 9:30 pm and I was finally by his side. Not long after another team of ICU people came in to check on him. Neil told them he had no feeling or movement in his left arm or leg. He had them baffled but the lead person said it was possible with it being an eight hour surgery that they laid him on his side for too long and it may have cut off the circulation. They would wait till morning and check-in on him again. By 11:00 pm he was resting good and the pain medication had allowed him to drift off to sleep, so I gathered up my things and went home to get some much needed sleep.
The next day I came prepared. I brought my tea, a lunch and my laptop. He would be awake for brief periods and then sleep for awhile. While he slept I would work on my Children's books or watch a movie. The doctor stopped by and explained the difficulties they had with his surgery with trying to remove things but the good news was he believed that they got all the cancer out. Everything was sent off to pathology now and it would be a couple of weeks before we would hear on that report. Neil, even though high on Morphine, still had his sense of humor and had us all laughing. The feeling had finally returned to his left arm and leg so it looked like he was on the mend.
Or was he???....we will pick this up again tomorrow, Tori.
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