A Scary Day

Today I had to endure something I have always dreaded - watching someone I love go into surgery.

A week ago, my husband was participating in a joint training exercise a few hours from home. He had been gone for almost a month and it was the day before they were to return home. He was helping to tighten down a load when he lost his grip and fell off the truck. His feet were stuck under a pallet and he hung by his ankles - backwards - for several minutes before someone was able to help him get unhooked. He ended up with two injured ankles. Later that afternoon he sent me this:

 Needless to say, I was appalled. After almost a year in the Army and many opportunities for injury, he gets hurt falling off a truck! He worked on it all day and was sure it was just a sprain. I however was sure there was no way he could have gotten off that easy.

The next morning he returned home and we took him to the ER on post to have it looked at. After several x-rays and a few hours of waiting, the ER doctor confirmed it was broken and put it in a splint and told us to meet with the orthopedic doctor the following Tuesday. When we saw the doctor he told us hubby had already been scheduled for surgery on Thursday. He showed us the x-rays and explained to procedure to us. Hubby would have two pins inserted to realign the broken bone in the ankle joint and to help it stay in place.

Today was D-Day. His surgery was scheduled for 11 am, but as surgeries usually go, they didn't take him back to prep until 1:30pm. The nurse told us the surgery would take about two hours total and that we were free to go home and eat and relax for a little while. Since we only live a few minutes from the hospital, we went and grabbed some lunch and had a little picnic by the pond. Byt the time we returned to the waiting room, it was 3pm and I was then informed he wouldn't be done until around 4:30. by this time our oldest was home from school, so I took the boys back home to play and came back to the hospital a third time to wait.

They finally called me back to recovery around 4:45. the first thing the nurse asked me was if my husband had sleep apnea. I told him not that I was aware of. Come to find out, he had stopped breathing for a short time when he was under anesthesia. That was more than a little unsettling. When I got to him, they had an oxygen mask on him and were harassing him to keep him from falling asleep. After my arrival, that job became mine. After a while, he was able to remove the mask and stay awake with no problems. Before we left, they administered a pain reliever in his IV as well as gave him a block to block out some of the pain.

I finally brought him home around 6:30. He struggled with nausea for several hours and the poor guy hadn't had a thing to eat or drink besides water since midnight the night before. Other than that and some pain, which is to be expected, he is doing well.

I am praising God that there were no major complications and that the surgery went well. Now it is time to focus on healing and rehabilitation. He should recover full, normal use of his ankle within six months.

I told him he had better not plan on putting me through something like this again. :P