The Never Ending Day

On January 10, Aaron's road to recovery started with surgery.  At 0630 I kissed him with tears in both of our eyes and said "See you later."  And he was gone.

The neurosurgeon had explained to us what the surgery was going to entail.  It would be an all day affair, meaning 12 hours.  He would have a general surgeon, Dr. Lundein, make a large smiley face incision on the left side of his abd and move his inner organs out of the way.  Then, Dr. Cherr would remove all bone fragments and put a titanium basket where the vertebrae was.  He would then place the bone fragments into the basket and miraculously they would regenerate a new vertebrae.  A titanium plate would be applied and the general surgeon would close him. 

Then it gets tricky.  They needed to turn Aaron on his abdomen and go in from the back.  He needed to make his spine more stable.  He would apply 2 rods and several screws to make him the bionic man.  My trust was in foreign hands and modern technology that my husband would not only live through this but also walk again.

The day dragged on and on.  I watched crazy people in the waiting room with Aaron's mom and dad.  I texted friends and family on how Aaron was doing.  My cousin Maria had made me a survival kit of sorts with books and candy and word finds, etc.  But my mind was just not working.  And my hands were so shaky.

By the end of the day, the waiting room was dark and empty.  Aaron's mom and dad and I had taken over an entire section.  The OR crew (and frankly everyone else at the hospital...except for a particular security guard) was very kind.  Someone either called me or talked to me at least every couple of hours with updates.  They made a difficult situation much easier.

Then, at 830 at night, he entered recovery.  Dr. Cherr, the trauma neurosurgeon, came out to talk to us and collapsed on the couch.  I really wanted to ask him how he eats and pees when he is in surgery for that long, but I did not think it was appropriate.  He spoke words that I will never forget, "This is a huge deal...he was within one millimeter of loosing all feeling in his legs...I do not know how he still has feeling and electrical impulses to the lower half of his body...it's a miracle..."  He carefully showed us x-rays and patiently answered all of our questions. 

Aaron lost FIVE LITERS of blood.  Five.  That is about how much the human body holds.  But he was stable, alive, and that is all I cared about at the time.

I paced the waiting room, alone, waiting for the phone to ring to tell me when I could see my husband.  His parents were exhausted, it was too much for them.  So, they headed for their hotel room.  At 1130 pm, the phone rang and I was notified that Aaron was not waking up very well and would need to go to ICU.  The worse news is that at one point they were going to try to extubate him and unfortunately he vomited.  So he aspirated some of his stomach contents (which is very bad.)  He ended up having to continue to be intubated and have another orogastric tube placed. 

I waited in the waiting room for them to get him situated in ICU.  I prayed and prayed and prayed, until my knuckles hurt.  I will take him home...I will not lose him...