October 2010 London
BLOG 33: Survival
I’ve been told that there is no point waiting around at the hospital as he is likely to be in the operating theatre for most of the day. It’s difficult waiting at home – there’s nothing I can put my mind to, except pray that all will go well. I keep hearing the Prof’s voice, an aside that he certainly did not intend me to hear: “I wouldn’t like to do this operation”. Well, of course, he is doing it, together with the rest of the highly qualified team.
Finally, late in the afternoon, I phone the hospital and speak to someone whose number I have been given. There’s no news other than he is still ‘in theatre’. OH has a good singing voice and used to enjoy playing roles in musical theatre (until a ladder was dropped on his toes in a production of ‘Gigi’). I wish being ‘in theatre’ meant he was rehearsing on stage.
The minutes and hours tick by. Still no news. I decide to go to the hospital so I can be on the spot, and hopefully, see him when he comes into the recovery ward, post op. It’s now 10 hours since the start. I try to quell my anxiety and put on a brave face.
When I get to the hospital, I am led to a small room where one of the surgical team comes to see me. It’s hard to tell from his expression what’s going on. He’s certainly not smiling. He tells me some pretty grim facts:
OH has just come out of theatre, into Intensive Therapy (used to be called Intensive Care).
There are complications.
What complications?
Seems that despite all precautions including having a kidney specialist present (and urologist, and cardiologist and goodness know how many others) as part of the team, an artery was cut due to it being obscured by extensive adhesions i.e. scar tissue from previous ops. They had large amounts of prematched blood on hand, but he evidently lost almost all the blood in his body (!) and the biggest problem they had was that no matter how much they pumped in, it couldn’t clot fast enough – even with special clotting agent. His heart remained stable but it’s too early to know about possible kidney damage or brain damage. They had to close the abdominal incision, but despite their best efforts, his blood pressure was still not stable which meant that there was possible internal bleeding. In the intensive therapy unit (ITU), he will be monitored closely but survival is touch and go. Daughter, from America (herself a doctor at consultant level), had been in constant touch with someone from the team and was getting the next plane out of Boston.
It will be good to have her here with me.
I tell other two sons not to come to hospital right now. I’ll see them tomorrow. I telephone my dear sister in Australia, who gives me great words of comfort. There is a small waiting room near the ITU for visiting family, and off it, another small room with a sink and a bench. I am given permission to bed down there for the night with a few cushions and a rug. I feel numb. I don’t expect to get much sleep.
. . . to be continued . . .usually posted on Thursday
