Postsurgery, day 1 (in which a clever title eludes me)

Good morning!

TL;DR: Everything went well in the evening, overnight and in the morning. Many doctors, nurses, students and others have been in and out—they all say he’s doing great. Perfusion (blood flow) in the tongue is great (probably the most important outcome of the surgery besides getting all the cancer out), all the wounds are doing what they should do, and he is sitting up as I type this. His mood is pretty good. Communication continues to frustrate him, but being able to get out of bed and move around will have a huge positive effect on his emotional well-being.

"Good morning, everybody!"

Full story:

He was kinda sleepy most of the night, but then at 10 p.m., BOING! Eyes wide open. This is usually about the time he really wakes up at home, and then he stays up until 2 a.m. or so. Fortunately, although he was wide awake for about a half-hour, he fell asleep rather quickly.

The nurse came in every hour to check on him—and stayed for a really long time each time. They are very thorough here, and that gives me a measure of comfort. When the night nurse (Tristan) came in at 6:30, he said Vic had done very well overnight, waking up when Tristan came in and then falling right back to sleep. It’s probably the most sleep he’s gotten in a month.

He’s been through two sets of rounds this morning, and neither of them was like Grey’s Anatomy. On the first set of rounds at 6:30, a swarm of locusts (I mean, doctors) descended, picked over him—each looking at a specific thing. One was looking at the tongue, one at the wrist, one at the thigh, one at the neck, etc. I heard them talking to each other and saying everything went well yesterday and things were looking great this morning. One of them—I think it was Dr. Gonzalez from Dr. Song’s office—asked if we had any questions. We didn’t. And as quickly as they came, they were gone. There were no introductions, no pleasantries. Just business. To be clear—I do not care whether they are friendly. They have a job to do, and they do it well.

The second set of rounds at 9 a.m. was what I would consider a more traditional rounds. A doctor, a bunch of nurses, and students. They did an extremely thorough review of his medical history, then did a systems review, then did a medication review—every single thing he was taking and why. They know everythingabout him! Then they all came in, and the doctor looked at all his wounds while the students looked on. For those of you keeping score, his platelets are 166. Now that surgery is done, the platelets aren’t as much of an issue—although they did say yesterday that they would be working with hematology to get guidance on the pesky platelets problem. In the end, they said his was an “easy, straightforward case,” and they expect him to be in the ICU for 24–72 hours.

Our current nurse is Emily. She couldn’t be a nicer, more professional person. She has been checking his perfusion—making sure the graft is taking hold. It is—his perfusion is great. (“Great” is a word I’m hearing a lot from these people. Such a relief.) She just took out his catheter and his A-line (no, not the train—it’s something they put in his ankle to check his blood pressure) and moved out of bed and into a chair. Nothing will improve his mood more than being able to get out of bed.

His communication frustration continues, but even that has improved overnight. Although it is still hard to understand him (he is moving his mouth and trying to speak, and apparently this is OK because no one says “DON’T DO THAT!!!”), he gets enough out that when he starts writing something, you can put it together pretty quickly. The biggest problem is that he tries to say one word and expects you to put together his entire thought process, and when you don’t understand, he gets superfrustrated. One time when this happened this morning, he just gave up and wrote “Winter is coming.” Ha! But I am hopeful that this will improve quite rapidly in the next few days.

Finally, a note for all you mother hens: Yes, I had dinner. Yes, I got a decent amount of sleep. Yes, I will eat today. Yes, I am taking care of myself. How could I not, with all of your voices in my ear?