I guess as long as all ends well, it's ok, but man, my family had a hell of a day yesterday. My dad was scheduled for surgery (prostate) around 10:30am. I thought it was weird that they (mom and dad, followed by my two brothers in a separate car) were headed to the hospital in Eagle Pass, which is about 45 minutes away at 9:00am. I remember my last surgery, they wanted me there like at 6:00am to get me ready, even though the surgery was much later, but I guess they run things differently down by the border. Eagle Pass is actually a border town, it meets Mexico and there is an international bridge that crosses into Piedras Negras. The local famous point is this is where the Kickapoo Casino is at.
All that aside, I guess my parents chose to do the surgery there because it is so close to their home. I would have preferred to drive an extra hour and gone to San Antonio, but I am fancy that way. The first sign of trouble was when the surgeon postponed the surgery a couple hours for an emergency. This pushed him up to around 2:00pm. I was on my way to work (I was out all last week sick, and we have several graduations coming up that will force me to be out, so I chose not to miss work for this). 2:00pm turned into 5:00pm with another distraction, then 7:00pm. Eventually, I was driving home close to 9:00pm, I called mom to see what the status was, and he had just been taken to the operating room, very close to 9:00pm. This really sucked because my dad was kept from fluid and eating all day, because one is not supposed to eat or drink prior to going under anesthesia.
The plan was that dad would be operated on early and then be kept overnight for observation, and since he would be in a regular private room, my mom was going to stay the night with him. Well, because the surgery was done so late, he was kept in the post operation room, through the night, so my mom found out at 9:00pm she would have to drive back home and come back in the morning, this was part of the reason my brothers drove in a separate car.
As I said, all's well that ends well, but my brother was taking pictures of the hospital after 10:00pm and it was a ghost town. All the normal reception areas and hallways looked abandoned, there wasn't even a security guy by the door. My brother was saying he could have walked out with computers and TVs, and nobody would have been there to say anything. Eventually, my dad came out and they talked to him for a bit, he seemed ok. My mom texted that he called her in the morning and had been taken out of the intensive care unit and was back in a normal room. His blood pressure had gone way up during the surgery, and he was also put on a bipap (breathing machine) because he was having trouble breathing for a bit post-surgery.
No comments:
Post a Comment