Wednesday: One day post surgery .

     Here is a bit of an update of the last day or so. Emily's stomach surgery was yesterday  morning. She was the first of the day. Peg spent the night with her and I went over at 5:30 am. Emily was moved by gurney to the pre surgery area about an hour later. She left for the surgery area about 8:00 and was finished by 10:00, when we saw the surgeon. He told let us know surgery had gone well.
   
She then went to the recovery area which is a pretty amazing and kind of unnerving place when you first see it. Unfortuantely it is all too familiar after all the procedures of the past years. It's all business back there. We finally got to go back at 1:00. Those three hours had been tough for Emily with the dreaded nausea and some pain. The entire team had  been ready for this as it has been such a problem in the  past. One of the docs said they basically used everything available before getting things truly under control. This was extra important as heaving after stomach surgery is pretty high on the list of bad things to have to do. Especially since this surgery makes puking almost impossible.
The pain however was  pretty well controlled early on. She remained in recovery until about 5:00pm. They were being very cautious of her lungs and wanted to monitor things extra long and careful. the recovery area which has about two dozen curtained areas had become very empty and quiet. When busy there is a boggling amount of activity with all of the ace medical folks going about their tasks. By the time we left it was like being at the pub long after last call. Most of the energy has gone out of the room as folks cleaned up and send drifted out the door.
   
    Last night was about as good as a first night after gets. Emily has a magic button that she gets to push for pain meds and this lets her stay ahead of the pain curve. Anti nausea meds are at the ready and the night nurse staff was excellent at staying on top of things. There were a coup;e of adventures with controlling blood sugars (Emily is diabetic). This is tough post surgical. Sleep was in short stretches but everyone worked very well to manage this. It's important because getting too far out of whack can bring on the nasty fiends: Nausea and Heaving. The evil twins.
    So as of mid day Wednesday things are going well. The goal of the next few days is to continue to manage the pain and nausea and evaluate when discharge will be. Not today for sure. As much as she want to get out every one is being very careful. Then we will stay in Seattle for at least a day before taking on the trip back to Eugene.
     Thanks for the good wishes that folks have been posting here and on FB. Emily reads them all and appreciates the contact.