June 12, 2024
We had to be at Piedmont Newnan this morning at 6:30 am for David’s Liver Ablation procedure at 8 am. They let me wait with him in pre-op until they came to take him at 8:30. We were both a little nervous but not as much as we were for the liver resection surgery in February. He had to change into a luxurious hospital johnny but he was allowed to keep his pants on so he was glad for that. Once they came to get his IV started, I went to the waiting room and waited. And waited and waited. Dr. K’s nurse practitioner told me that it may take longer than an hour depending on how many tumors Dr. K was going to target. She told me not to worry if it seemed to be taking a while. This procedure is a CT guided procedure so David would be in a CT type machine during the process. He was given general anesthesia and intubated. David isn’t too keen on the tube, but they told us it was left to the anesthesiologist and sometimes they used oxygen but often times they used intubation. Waiting at the hospital is torture for me. I read, do puzzles, scroll on my phone, take stock of everyone in the waiting area, eat a snack, and after that ten minutes has passed, I am fidgety and bored. I always wait too long to get up to go use the restroom and then I am afraid they will call me while I am gone, so I end up not going and they don’t call. Always my luck. Around 11:30, they called for me to come back to the area where we started out this morning. His nurse said he had gone up to the PACU following the procedure due to the intubation and had done well up there. She said his pain level was a 4. When I saw him, he was awake and a little grumpy as he usually is when in recovery. He was watching Bluey (he loves that cartoon. It makes him happy) on one of those neat little screens with the monitor arm thing that telescopes over the bed.. All rooms should have those. In fact, I would love one of those at home. He said he felt ok but felt really sore. He said his shoulder was hurting pretty good and the nurse explained there can be referred pain in the shoulder after this procedure. David said they also had told him in the PACU, that because they had to manipulate his arm over his head during the procedure, it would most likely be sore. They told him sometimes they pull tendons and muscles by moving arms back and forth because people are knocked out and cannot tell them it hurts. I guess checking range of motion beforehand isn’t a thing you do. Anywho, I asked if he could have ice or water and his nurse said she could give him a little ice but he had to wait about an hour for liquid. The ice was nice for his scratchy throat and later she brought him a ginger ale. Dr. K stopped by and said he was able to target three of the largest tumors on the right side of David’s liver. He said he could see them clearly. He said he would order a scan in a few weeks to check progress and determine when to do the one on the left side of the liver. He said the one under his heart is harder for him to see and he mentioned possibly doing Y90 on just that one in order to save damage to the rest of the liver. He said he didn’t see any new spots and we had “plenty of tools left in the toolbox in order to manage the disease”. David and I both were relieved to hear that even if it is just the situation in this moment today. David slept a little off and on and we had to hang around until around 2:30 when they let us go. I went for the car and David took the mandatory wheelchair Uber to the front to wait for me. His nurse gave us a prescription for an antibiotic that Dr. K wrote and said he should not lift anything heavier than a milk jug for about a week. So, it is me and big gurl Gracie the Emotional Support Blanket riding piggyback again. He said he was feeling hungry and there was a God’s Chicken place across the street so we curbsided it and he ate a grilled sandwich on the way home. He was all zzzzzzz before he took his last bite and slept the whole way home. I rattled off a gratitude list to myself and just drove home on auto pilot feeling pretty tired too. I deposited him and big Gracie on the couch and went to the pharmacy for the script. SL picked him up some mashed potatoes from KFC which is his after-surgery-feel-bad-go-to food. He doesn’t eat them any other time. He sampled them and then crashed on the couch where he is still snoozing. I asked if he wanted to go to bed and he said no he was too comfortable. I went out and watered the flowers and his tomatoes and peppers. I am running on empty, and boy is it hot. I think I am done for the day too.
David’s shirt today: There is no cloud. It’s just someone else’s computer.
