Surgery Update

Well, it was a long day… we arrived at the hospital around 6:00am and was able to talk with Ed before they took him away around 6:45. Then the waiting game started.

We were told to go to the Cardiac ICU waiting room for any updates. Linda checked after a couple of hours and was told that they started around 7:30 which was 1/2 hour earlier than planned.

Around 11:30 we were told to expect an update from the doctor and a few minutes before noon, while we were watching The Price is Right, the doctor gave us the good news that Ed came through the surgery fine and is in recovery. He said the next 24 hours is critical and that he would probably be unconscience for another 3 or 4 hours.

Around 12:30pm, a nurse came by and allowed me and Linda to see Ed. His body was covered so we didn’t see any of the numerous tubes coming out from him except for the breathing tube. The nurses said that he’s starting to come out of it and he was having a difficult time so we could only stay for about a minute. We could see him twitching and watched the machine breath for him.

The nurses said his vital signs were good and strong and they will be working with him throughout the day so they can remove the breathing tube.

We visited him for brief periods during the day and each time he looked better and was even able to signal to his brother Bob by tapping his finger on Bob’s hand (they worked out a signal to communicate before going into the hospital).

His eyes opened and looked around briefly but he definetely wanted that breathing tube removed and the nurses told us that once he’s strong enough to breath on his own they would take it out.

We will be going back Friday morning so I will post again in the morning with any additional news.

I posted yesterday that you can send an E-Mail card to Ed from the Hospital’s website and they will deliver it to him. If you’d like to pass on a message to him, just click this link and fill out the page…

http://www.saintfranciscare.com/body.cfm?id=857