Luke's Surgery

Thank you to all of the family members and friends who have been praying for Luke and his surgery today! Everything went so smoothly!

Here is what our day looked like:

5:10AM - I somehow drag myself out of bed and get ready.

5:40AM - I offer to drive to the hospital and Luke turns me down. (Men. *rolls eyes*). Luke drives us to the hospital, seemingly cool as a cucumber, as I fight some crazy nerves. You would never know that HE was the one having the surgery.

6:00AM - We arrive at the hospital, and we are the early birds for once. Besides us, there are only two nurses in the whole same-day-surgery area. It felt really strange and twilight zone-ish being in that big hospital with almost no one around.

6:30 AM - Luke changes into his fancy, stylish hospital gown and answers approximately 8 million questions from the nurse. The nurse then puts Luke's IV in, tells him that's the worst part, and Luke is still cool as a cucumber while I am feeling squeamish at the thought of a needle poking him. I look away.

7:00 AM - The anesthesiologist comes to see Luke. She asks approximately 8 million more questions.

7:05 AM -We wait. And wait. Luke is wondering why we had to be there by 6:00...

7:45 AM - The doctor finally comes to see Luke! And then Luke's mom came around the corner! She had told Luke she was coming, but Luke forgot to tell me, so that was SUCH a surprise blessing! Right before she got there, I was starting to feel nervous and lonely at the thought of being in the waiting room alone for hours. So I'm sooo glad she came! What a blessing :-)

8:00 AM - I kiss Luke goodbye and he is wheeled away. Patty and I head to the waiting room where we chat and read our books. Sometime during our first waiting period, my cousin Rachel stopped by for a visit. She is a nurse at the hospital. And that was another great blessing!

Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 AM - My little buzzer, just like a buzzer you get at a restaurant signaling you when your table is ready, went off, telling us that Luke was out of surgery. We then moved on to a little conference room where more waiting ensued. The doctor came in after a few moments and let us know that the surgery went as well as we could have expected! He said the surgery took about 8 minutes, total. Another blessing! (By the way, for those who don't know, Luke had surgery on his left ear. He had to have some sort of mysterious growth removed. An exo-something-or-other. The doctor said he had never really seen anything like it before, and had no idea how he could have gotten it. The important thing is that it's gone now!)

9:00 AM - We were sent BACK to the waiting room for, naturally, more waiting. While in there, Rachel visited again, and this time her husband Jared came too. Jared also works at the hospital! He works with computers there. A few moments after they left, their brother-in-law/our cousin-in-law (if there is such a thing) Doug came and visited us, too! Because, surprise! He works there too, in the IT department. We just had all kinds of visitors! It was nice :-)

9:30 AM - We were called back into the room with Luke! He was awake and seemed to be doing okay. Patty then headed out, and I stayed with Luke until he was released. I continued to read my book while Luke watched The Hangover on his iphone! I tried to talk to him a little, and for just getting out of surgery, he did seem to be pretty talkative and with-it! And only a little bit goofy and drugged-up. Haha!

10:00 AM - I pulled my car around while a very nice man wheeled my poor husband out to the car. And we were on our way! Honestly, it took much less time than I thought it would. I thought we would be there until at least noon.

10:30AM - Luke was at home in his favorite recliner, already falling asleep. So I went out to my least favorite place, Walmart, to fill his prescription. I should have just gone out to my car while I was waiting for it to be filled, because I always end up buying things I don't need while I'm aimlessly walking around the store. In addition to Luke's prescription, I walked away with: a card, chocolate-covered pretzels, and Reeses Pieces for Luke, and also some Sour Patch Kids, Coldstone Hot Chocolate - dark chocolate OF COURSE (who knew Coldstone had hot chocolate??), and some allergy medicine. (We think I may have developed an allergy to cats. I KNOW! Tragic, right?)

11:30 AM - I leave Walmart with my loot and decide that since Hot Dog Shoppe is directly across the street, it only made sense that I would swing through the drive-thru and grab a burger and fries for lunch. It had been a hard morning, after all :-)

12:00 PM - I return home to a completely zonked out husband. I enjoyed my lunch, watched some shows on Instant Netflix, and then took a nap of my own, all while Luke was napping. I don't think anything would have awoken him. Case in point:

1:30 PM - The texts start rolling in, awakening me from my cat nap. Everyone wanted to know how Luke's surgery had gone, and I felt so blessed that so many people had been praying for him, and wanted to know how he was doing!

1:50 PM - Luke's mom stopped by to drop off our dinner (to be eaten later, of course). More on this in a moment...it was DE-LISH!

2:00 PM - I alternated between straightening up the house and lounging around for awhile...Luke had finally awoken at this point.

3:00 PM - Decided it was about time to go out and vote. My cousin, Sarah, and I went together because we were both registered in the wrong county. We were super nervous that they wouldn't let us vote, but everything worked out. I'm so glad we could go together since we were both sort of in the same boat. Haha! And guess who we saw there! Rachel and Jared (you know, the ones from the hospital?) again!
5:00 PM- My mom came over to visit and see how Luke was doing, and then it was time for the feast that Patty had made us for dinner:Her broccoli cheese soup and some delicious bread that we toasted and sprinkled a little garlic on. Another huge blessing! I think Luke loved having this soup because it is one of his favorites, and a comfort food for him. And I loved not having to cook! So thank you, Patty! She also made a dessert that we are waiting until later to try. We wanted to eat some right after dinner, but our stomachs protested ;-)

And we have both been chilling around here for the rest of the evening. I was so incredibly nervous about today, but we had so many people praying for us, and not only did the surgery go even better than planned, but our day was filled with so many great blessings!

Even so, I'm glad the whole thing is over, and it's one less thing we have to worry about!

Now I'm just praying for a speedy recovery!

{I understand that this post was probably long and boring for most people, and I apologize! But it's a part of our history now, and I wanted to write about it! :-)}