3.5 HOURS LATER...

I apologize for not posting an update on Jay's surgery yesterday. It went much longer than expected and we were both exhausted by the time we got home, with zero desire to get on the computer.

Here's a quick run-down of the day:

Up at 4:30am to get to the surgery center by 6:15am. Filled out paperwork and waited for a short bit. They took Jay back for preliminaries around 7:00am (getting his surgical gown and IV) and I joined him about 15 minutes later. They took him back to the surgical room at 7:50am and called me just after 8:00am to let me know they'd started. I got updates hourly that they were "still working on him and it's going well", which caused me a lot of anxiety because surgery was only suppose to last for one hour. At 9:00am I wasn't too worried, but by 10:00am I was. At 11:00am when they checked in and told me they expected to have him under for another hour, I was definitely stressing out and just sitting there chewing my nails. Luckily just 20 minutes later they called to say they were done, but I didn't get much info from the nurse. She said that "It went well, there was just a lot to clean up." I waited another 20 minutes before they let me go back to the recovery room. We'll meet with his surgeon on Tuesday when he goes back for his follow-up appointment and cast placement. They video the surgeries, so we'll get all the details about why the surgery took almost 3.5 hours instead of just 1. They did send him home with a lovely souvenir cup of bone fragments...

(I'm sure he's thrilled I'm posting a photo of his shaved ankle...)

Jay was just barely waking up when I got to his bedside. His recovery room nurse said that he'd been under so long it would probably take a while, and she expected him to be there at least another hour. So I went back and forth between talking to him and trying to get him to drink water, and letting him drift back to sleep. His first question was "Is surgery over?" His second question (a minute later) was "Is surgery over?" And his third question (about 5 minutes later) was "What's going on with my ankle?" Poor guy. I had to remind him where he was and why his ankle was elevated and wrapped in gauze and a splint. He had a bad headache (likely a combo of coming off the anesthesia and the fact that he hadn't had any coffee and it was now after 12:00pm) and body spasms and cold chills (which we remedied with heated blankets), but wasn't feeling pain anywhere else (he had IV pain meds as well as local anesthetic in his ankle). When the nurse asked him if his ankle hurt he said "No, the left one feels fine!" Mr. Comedian. His right ankle was basically just numb, with a bit of a dull pain (so the nurse gave him a couple extra doses of pain meds while we waited for him to fully wake, to counteract the dull pain and hopefully help with his headache). He also had some unexplained pain in his right quad until the nurse told us that they had a tourniquet on his thigh to reduce blood flow to the lower leg. Once he was awake enough to talk to the nurse about discharge, get dressed, and drink some coffee, I was feeling better (I'd been pretty nervous watching him wince through that headache and shake with body spasms). We didn't leave the surgical center until after 1:00pm, so he was in recovery for well over an hour and a half, and he was starving! We stopped for sandwiches, ice cream, more coffee, pain meds, and movies (to keep Jay and the kids occupied this long weekend) on the way home, and by the time I finally got him settled in bed it was 3:45pm. The numbness was starting to wear off at that point, and the pins and needles were quite painful for him, so he took his first dose of oral pain meds. LONG day for him (and me), so we napped for a short bit before dinner.

(Sitting up for the first time with that heavy splint and dressings.)

Last night was rough for him because he has a bit of an allergy to his pain meds (they make him jittery and wide awake, rather than the expected side effect of sleepiness) and he was awake all night. He hasn't slept since he came out of surgery at 11:20am yesterday. BUT, he isn't in any pain, so that's good. He put a call in for a new pain med and/or sleep aid, which I'll be picking up on my way home here shortly (I had to come into work this morning to finish helping with a proposal). Fingers crossed he can get some rest today because he needs it not just to heal, but for his sanity (crazy man redesigned our bathroom in his head last night, planned out a potential restaurant business for us in our old age, and numerous other random things while his mind was swirling around instead of resting...) I'll update again Tuesday after we talk to the doc. Thank you all for your prayers and concern yesterday, and for helping distract me while I was sitting in that waiting room. Jay really appreciates all the love!