Post Surgery

Lots of stuff over the last 24 hours.

Right about noon on Friday mommy went into surgery for a tracheotomy (tube in her throat to breathe through) and to be connected to a ventilator. Surgery was short at about an hour. She did great. Right after surgery she came back to the Intensive Care Unit where we still are today. She is in a lot of pain and we are trying to keep her heavily sedated although she has been able to answer questions and is not quite "out of it."

Last night Grandma M came and stayed in the room with mommy so that daddy could go get some sleep in the van. The area that he had slept in the van in the past was an out of the way parking deck but this time he decided to move to the main parking deck to be closer to the Emergency Department entrance which is the only one that you can come into during the night. Big mistake. More traffic and more light. Solved the later by putting some jackets blocking the front windows but that drew too much attention apparently as he found himself being woken up by radios outside the van at 3:00am and then having to explain to security what he was doing there. There is some talk that there may be some room somewhere here in the hospita that daddy can get some real sleep and maybe do a little work while we are here - we have a nurse and a respiratory therapist right now that is pushing for us.

The girls are on their way to Candlelighter's Family Camp. A year ago Sarah "married" Alex and they took their honeymoon on a golf cart to Sacramento. This year Alex's family was gracious enough to come pick up our van and take our girls and their two kids all to camp. We will miss being there with the girls (and seeing how the camp turns out as mommy and daddy were both on the comittee who put the camp together) but we are glad that the girls get to go.

Where we go from here today is up in the air. We may stay in ICU or we may go back to her main room on the respiratory ward. We will be in the hospital 7-10 days so that the tube can heal enough to be taken care of at home. When she comes home she will have to be on a ventilator 24/7. There is a chance that she will be able to talk a little bit by moving some air around the tube over her vocal cords but that is not for sure yet. We were not counting on this at all so it is a pleasant surprise that there is at least a chance.

Having someone with mommy at the hospital (days and nights) so that Daddy can be home for some work and to get the girls off for their first week of school is our biggest need right now. Please pray for that and if you may be in a position to be able to help with that please give Nancy (our Volunteer Coordinator) a call or email: 5o3-648-34 Seven Six, or njbmiller AT GEEEEMail.com

Emails are great as are comments here (or on daddy's facebook: search for adamsesq @ that yah... place.com) but visitors are not so much right now.