Today was a GOOD Day!!!

After talking to Dr. Jones last night after Ray's surgery, Ken and I sat around for a couple of hours waiting to hear that he was out of recovery, then went on over to 4 West where he was supposed to be taken. They gave us the number of his room and told us we could wait in a patients' day room at the end of the hall until they brought him in and got him settled. An hour later, we were still waiting, so I went to the nurses' station and was informed that he wasn't going to be brought to 4 West after all, that they were going to keep him in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) overnight. So we scurried over to the PACU and the nurse said she was keeping him sedated because he was very restless, but she woke him up to see us. He seemed to recognize us, but he was high as a kite, so we bid him goodnight and returned to our motel because Ken was leaving at 4 AM to drive to Dulles to catch a flight to the West Coast.

After a mostly sleepless night, I returned to the PACU about 8 AM, and there was the patient, sitting up in a chair with a gap-toothed grin. He harrassed me the entire day; that is, he had a really fun day. No pain to speak of, and by the time I left tonight, many of the tubes he'd been tethered to earlier in the day had been removed. He still has a drainage tube in his chest and heart leads attached here and there, and he's not moving very fast, but he's actually using his pain pump, and is in good spirits. He's still in the PACU, not because he needs to be, but because there's no bed available for him on 4 West.

I don't know where he'll be in the morning when I go back to the hospital, IF I get back to the hospital. It's supposed to start snowing tonight, so it depends on whether I can get a taxi to take me over to the hospital in the morning.

So anyway, the thoughts and prayers are still working, so please keep them coming. We're not quite home free. Much love and many thanks, Kay