I'm going to go on and blog early today since we are home and have settled in for the moment. Nathan ended up being able to drive us to and from Woody's surgery today...a very big help! He ended up running some errands for Kathy in Murfreesboro and also did some supply shopping for the BCM (Baptist Collegiate Ministry). He had to find belts the right color for Isaac and Joseph for their Fall Ball uniforms. Next week begins Fall Ball in Tullahoma. Isaac and Joseph are on the same team, Bama...so crimson belts were needed. I think that Nathan ended up settling on red belts. Things kept moving once we got there. There wasn't a lot of waiting for any length of time in any one place. They kept us moving...main waiting room, same day surgery waiting room, the preop room and then on to surgery for Woody and back to the same day surgery waiting room for me. The surgeon was able to place the graft ( a piece of tubing under the skin that connects to a vein on one end and an artery on the other. The tubing is placed in an upside loop...upside down "U" on the inside of his upper arm on the left arm. They gave Woody a nerve block...and he is still feeling "no pain." His arm is of no use to him at the moment. He is to keep it propped on a pillow or two to keep down the swelling. There's not much more to do for swelling as he shouldn't put ice on it because they don't want the graft to clot off! I'm blogging now as Woody is determined that he is going to the Furnace Room Prayer meeting this evening which means that I have to go, too, as he can't drive for 24 hours after anesthesia and has all pain meds out of his system. We will be putting a sling back on his arm when we head to the church. If he is true to form, he won't be taking any pain meds, but we will see. The nurse indicated that it was probably going to hurt quite a bit once the block wears off. I'm pretty sleepy all of a sudden. I don't know about Woody. Of course, he did get a bit of a nap while they operated on him. He, once again, woke up really easily. And, this time didn't have the shakes after surgery. We are glad the doctor was able to put the graft in his weak arm...just hoping that it will be easy to access for me. We had funny reactions from both his preop and postop nurse when they discovered that we are doing hemodialysis at home...both were quite surprised and hadn't realized that home hemo was a possiblity. It is good that they surgeon was able to use his nondominant arm as he really won't be able to use it for a lot of things...and he really uses his dominant arm since the nondominant isn't of much for a lot of things...guess it is proving its worth as an access site for his dialysis. Not long after I sat down in the waiting room after I left Woody in the preop area, I got a call from one of the Fresenius workers, Jerry. He needs to come check the quality of our water, again...guess it has been a month. He is going to stop by tomorrow afternoon. Always something! Well, we have one of our days off this week...pretty filled! We will do dialysis for the next three days and have our second day off on Friday as he has an appointment to get the stitches out from the removal of his PD caetheter and also has his appointment at TN Oncology for labs, see the doctor, and get his Keytruda infusion. Another day off that will be pretty filled! Just wanted to report successful surgery before it got too late tonight since I will be going to prayer meeting with Woody. Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!
No comments:
Post a Comment