Friday, October 12, 2007

Sister Sarah

I got a phone call from my mom on Wednesday night telling me that my sister had been taken to the hospital as her gall bladder attacks were worsening. My mom said she would call in the morning to let me know what the out come was.

I woke up on Thursday and had yet to hear from my mom. On my way into work I called her and she had just come back home at 5:30 that morning and is on her way back to the hospital soon. Apparently my sister was going to have emergency surgery and was just waiting for an opening. I decided at that point that my mom was really in no shape to drive out to 400/Finch and stay there all day by her self, so I headed over to her place and picked her up.

At the hospital we found a very sick sister Sarah. She was in a lot of pain even with the morphine. I felt really bad for her. At 7: 30pm she was finally taken into the O.R. and the doctor told us it would be an hour and he would come talk to us in the waiting area at Tim Hortons. Mom and I left and went to get some dinner. We got anxious close to the hour mark and waited for the doctor to round the corner at any moment. At 9pm my mom started to panic, but I assured her that all was well and they are most likely taking their time.

9:30, 10:00, 10:30 now mom is crying and is convinced that something is wrong. I was running out of things to tell her and she was starting to get me worried. I decided to go up to her room...maybe we had missed her, but the bed was empty.

In the mean time the gentleman whose wife came out of surgery before Sarah went in...is wondering around looking for her. We had over heard the doctors talking about a patient that was not breathing and was being vented and moved to the ICU. I assumed it was this mans wife, but I did not want to say anything as there is always a slim chance that I am just nosey and it's not her. This happened at 6:30, before Sarah was taken in. He kept saying to us that he cannot find anyone in surgery to talk to and the nurses upstairs are redirecting him back to O.R.. He mentioned that no one was in recovery, so Sarah must still be in surgery. At this point my mom pretty much loses it as a 1 hour procedure has turned into over 3 hours and she is thinking the worst.

Then this man finally finds out from the nurses up stairs that his wife has been moved to ICU, as she is not breathing on her own, and he left to investigate that was at 10:45pm...nearly five hours after the fact. I felt terrible for him and I hope that she is fine. It was morally heart wrenching to not tell him what I had over heard. Thank God the nurse told him, as I am pretty sure I could not keep it from him much longer....stupid doctors put me in that position.
Mom is really freaking out now, because if they kept that info from him then what are they keeping from us. His wife's surgery was a simple procedure too, she just didn't want to come around in recovery and so they vented her.

We decided at this point to go down to the O.R. and ransack it until we found Sarah. As we walked in Sarah's O.R. nurse comes running from one of the rooms and stops in her tracks.

Nurse: What are you two still doing here?

Us: Waiting for Sarah to come out of surgery.

Nurse: Who

Us: Sarah...Gallbladder

Nurse: Oh God she left hours ago.

Us: What

Nurse: Yeah 8:30, her surgery is done she's gone back to her room.

Us: But the doctor never came to tell us she was out

Nurse: oh. I am sorry...she's fine the surgery was fine

We headed back up to the room where Sarah has been asking for us for the last 40 minutes or so. We must have passed each other when I checked the first time.

She is doing well and will be coming home today. It was a really long day and I am glad I decided to go with my mom. I could not imagine her sitting alone through that. Holy stress.



This is Sarah while we are waiting in the OR. I am killing time by trying to convince her that she is pretty. She was too sleepy to play so I took a picture for later, and by later I mean face book....I'm a bitch!

5 comments:

MP said...

I'm glad she is doing OK..I hear that is VERY painful. I can't imagine, I'm such a whimp.

What Asses...not coming to tell you..but then if I were family of a sick person I'd be pissed if my doctor was off talking to people when they could be working on my family.

Hospitals..I don't like them at all!

S said...

Goodness, I am so glad that she's OK. What a stressful experience -- for everyone.

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear Sarah is alright! I'm glad the pain part is over!
Call if you need anything!

Colleen said...

I'm so happy to hear Sarah is doing well and that her surgery went well and without any complications!!!

Hope she's well on her way to a full recovery!!!

AmyB said...

Haha! You are MEAN (picture)! ;o)

But it was so nice of you to go with your mom and be there for your sister. So glad everything turned out well!