Another Surgery

he

 Two weeks post op and the stitches in his back and the staples in his side are out and the doctor is impressed with his work. He said Tom is doing better than a lot of his patients after two MONTHS post op. Bad new is they referred him to the orthopedist for the pain in his knee.

The recovery had a slow start. The surgery included two parts, actually two surgeries. The original bad disc was in such a place that they couldn't get to it through the back so through the last four surgeries they left the crumbling disc in place. This surgery started with  a 6inch incision on his side to remove the bad disc and put in a spacer. That alone took an hour and a half. Then they had to flip him to his stomach to do the second surgery which was to add on to the fusion he already had both at the top and bottom. They took him back at 11am and completed at 5:30 but he didn't make it to recovery until after eight.
They had some trouble getting him sedated. The person who put his original IV in did not have it in his vein so the drugs they were putting in to relax him before surgery didn't work at all, he found the operating room all very interesting. By the time they got him to sleep they had trouble intubating him so when he came out of surgery so late they decided to keep him intubated and sedated just in case. That was a bit scary, the last time I saw someone intubated was my dad and THAT didn't come out so well.
The next morning he was doing much better but that was when we realized he had a spinal head ache. The doctor said they found a pouch of spinal fluid that leaked. That kept Tom flat on his back in bed for three days. He also had a fever and an Ileus (his inestines didn't wake up) so he couldn't eat but on the fourth day he was out of bed and the fifth day he came home.

SHOUT OUT TO OUR SON AND DAUGHTER IN LAW FOR DRIVING ME TO BALTIMORE EVERY DAY. I COULD HAVE DONE IT MYSELF BUT IT WAS GREAT THAT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. ALSO TO JENNIFER FOR KEEPING THE HOUSE RUNNING AND OUR FOSTER SON SAFE. THE THREE OF YOU WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND. LOVE YOU!