Slow and Steady!

Okay girls and boys...here we go!!  Bear with me because I may not be able to make total sense! (And this post has taken me days to compose) For right now, the speech and language is the hardest thing for me to handle.  The therapist says I have expressive aphasia.  But it’s getting better every day.

Feb. 10, 2014 – We arrived at 5:45 a.m. at the University of Utah Hospital.  Mom and Dad went in with me as I checked in.  In Salt Lake, I attend Christ UMC and Pastor Pat had agreed to come to the hospital and stay with my parents during the surgery.  So he was waiting for us in the surgical waiting room when we got there.

I knew I had to have one last MRI before I went into to operating room.  One of the neurosurgeon residents came down to get me.  She was afraid to wait for the orderly to come and take me because it would be 30 minutes before get me and that would mean the surgery wouldn't start on-time if they had to wait that long to get the MRI done.  For some reason this part of the day really made me feel like I was on an episode of Grey's Anatamoy.  The resident reminded me of the character, April Kepner from the show (I think was her.  Her first year on the show was the year I watched the show regularly).

For this MRI, I had “life-savers” placed strategically around my head in an asymmetrical pattern.  They were then outline with a marker so I had lovely purple marks for days after.  This MRI was easy and it only lasted for 12 minutes.  (I have one after the surgery that from my perspective didn’t go as well).  As I was waiting to go in, I talked with the MRI techs about the my speech after the surgery.  We had heard of people who after surgery wound up speaking with a British accent and we were trying to decide if I would me one of those people.  (Though I had no intention of losing my Southern accent or else heads would roll!!)

By the time I got back from the MRI, Mom, Dad and Pat had met the anesthesiologist and one of his residents.  Since I wasn’t supposed to have something that blocked my throat so I could speak during the surgery, they gave me something that tasted like an extra salty sour catch kid to control my stomach acid.  Shortly thereafter, they took me back to the operating room and I don’t remember anything else until I woke up.

Now that may sound wrong to you because since I found out about the surgery, they’ve been planning to wake me up during the middle of the procedure.  WELL….things didn’t quite go as planned.  They had my head pinned in several plans to keep it still during the procedure.  And I was supposed to wake up as easy as you please once they turned the anesthesia off.  But they couldn’t get me to wake up and apparently I am just as fidgety when I’m out as when I’m awake.  So I ended jerking my head against the pins trying to hold me still and getting cut by the pins in the process.  I (of course) didn’t know about any of this until after the fact.  I woke up 8 hours later in the OR before being wheeled pasted the waiting room to the ICU.  That time I woke up like I was supposed to, so I was wide awake and knew exactly where I was and what was going on (though I had trouble saying so).  I did know that when we passed the waiting room, I saw Mom, Dad and Dan and waved as they wheeled me passed.