From Recovery to Room

Kathleen here again.
I went to the hospital this morning to be there as ME was moved into a room. As I turned the corner expecting to see the now-familiar lush growth of impatiens in bloom with their fun little bursting seed pods, I was taken aback to see that all the lovely plants had been pulled out and dumped into a truck bed, and a crew was planting chrysanthemums. I felt uprooted myself.

MaryEllen was still in recovery and they were waiting for her surgeon to arrive an clear her for a room assignment. Obviously he had a very tiring long day yesterday himself, so no one felt he should hurry. When he came in he said Mary Ellen looked very good, and he told her that the blood vessels he had to work with had turned out to be much smaller and shorter than he had expected, making for a trickier and longer surgery. The oxygen saturation on the transplanted tissue looked good, and he told me to keep reminding ME to breathe deeply to keep the tissue full of oxygen.

She was then moved to a room, unfortunately by a pair of bumbling idiots paying more attention to their cell phones than to the many dangling lines hanging off the bed that were attached to ME. They were so bad that the floor nurse promised to report them.

It took a while for our new nurse, Susan, to get ME all settled. She needed Benadryl for the itching associated with the anesthesia meds, and then her flaps had to be checked for capillary refill and all SIX drains had to be emptied and the fluids measured.

Overall things were promising, but MaryEllen was very uncomfortable and itchy and nauseated and not thrilled that the doctor's orders included getting her up and into a chair.

I left after she was all settled and went to meet a friend and have some time to regroup.
I had asked people to refrain from visiting because when ME would finally get to sleep, she would need to be left to rest. She did ask to have her next-door neighbor Lori come and bring her favorite soup and a Wendy's chocolate shake.
I will see her tomorrow, and I'm sure there will be more visitors then. Goodnight, Kathleen