Angie & Jim

Time for another surgeryby Jim

I’m here at Stanford hospital waiting for Angie’s surgery to be finished. They wanted us here at 5:30 this morning, and it is an hour drive to get here (to the minute according to the GPS), so we had to wake up super early. We arrived only a few minutes late. There wasn’t traffic, but I was still surprised how many cars were on the road.

Checking in went fine and they let me go back with her until she left for the O.R.. They actually moved her surgery to the cardiac O.R. so they could take all the time they wanted. They’ve got the room booked the entire day. She was scheduled for 7:30 in the regular O.R., but they wanted to have plenty of time to do pacemaker stuff and whatnot. Unfortunately, that means I don’t know when it will be done (or when it started for that matter). I assume by now they’ve already begun.

We were told they hope the procedure will take no more than 2 hours. They are going to do some exploration first to see what is going on and then based on that, they’ll remove the cyst(s). Anything else that has to go will also be removed at their discretion. Angie’s got her iPod with her and a CD of meditation and relaxing music prescribed to her for the surgery. I guess they’re doing this new thing for patients to help them relax. She’s not being put to sleep, so hopefully the recovery will go faster. She’ll be pretty happy with all the drugs they’ll give her, so she should be just fine.

As this is our first time at an “adult” hospital, we were a little apprehensive about our experience. So far, I’ve been really impressed with the professionalism and the sensitivity of the doctors, nurses, and staff here. I was worried the service would be really good, but that they wouldn’t care as much about feelings and emotions and the other parts of healing that Primary Children’s is so good at. Well, this is a world-class hospital for good reason, it seems.

I will keep you posted as the day goes on, so keep checking in!

(Leave comments on this and subsequent posts for Angie to read.)