ALIF Part 1

It seems that a lot of you enjoyed the play by play of the pancreatitis experience so I thought I would do the same thing for the surgery as well. Now remember the surgery was called an ALIF, which stands for Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion. So here it goes:

We woke up way before the sun on tuesday morning. I am not a morning person and I should never be up before the sun, but its just one of those things I will do for my hubby. As I was finishing up getting ready we got a phone call from the hospital asking if we could come in early because the guy scheduled before Rick had a big cup of coffee before coming in for surgery. What an idiot!! So we were out the door in about 5 minutes.

We arrived at the hospital a few minutes before 7 a.m. We didn't have to wait at all. Rick was immediately sent back to a room to get prepared for surgery. I got to go back with him right away, which is how it should always be but I won't get into that now. He put on his gown and crawled up into his bed. At this point I was so nervous. The thought of what was about to happen was almost too much for my nerves. But I of course held it together.

The nurse asked a lot of questions and got him all entered into the computer. Then another nurse walked in and said that she had the blood and would be sending it to the operating room. I saw the 2 units of blood she was trying to hide behind her back. It was a little disturbing to think that Rick could possibly need a blood transfusion. Luckily he never needed the blood though.

He was then rushed up to another pre-op holding area where lots of different doctors and nurses talked to him about what would be happening. They kept asking him if he was nervous and he said he wasn't, but I think he was just trying to hide it from me. His IV was started and he got to put on his very fashionable blue hospital cap. The surgeon came and talked about the surgery. He was a little worried about the pancreatitis getting stirred back up because of the surgery, but it never did. He explained what was going to happen. And the general surgeon that was working with him came and talked to us as well. The incision was going to have to be made a little higher on the abdomen because of where the herniated disc was, and because of the abnormality of Rick's back. He also told us that there is a chance that the leg pain won't be completely relieved, in which case he will go back in and remove some more disc from the back. But that wouldn't be a major surgery and wouldn't slow the recovery time. We are just hoping that doesn't happen.

So after the anesthesiologist came and explained how Rick would be intubated during the surgery, and the rest of the nurses were done with their stuff, it was time to say goodbye to Rick. The anesthesiologist gave him some IV versed (very good happy drug) and I had to kiss him goodbye. I watched as he was wheeled out the doors and I was escorted to the dreaded waiting room. My heart was beating like crazy and my stomach felt like it was in my throat. I hate saying goodbye, but this was a very different circumstance than what we are used to. Major surgery is scary. I was very scared!

I will continue later. Now I am going to hang out with my hubby.

Until next time,
Jaime