08/02/06 - the view from ICU

Hi, all. The Little Woman says "points to self, smiles, thumbs-up gesture", which I take to mean "tell everyone I'm OK".

I missed her this morning - by the time I got to the hospital at 11am she'd been taken down to theatre. She got back from theatre to ICU some time between 5 and 6pm. I managed to get to see her at about 9.30pm. By that time, they'd revived her and removed her breathing tube. She's wired up to every monitor going, as usual for ICU, with an N-G tube and a chest drain, but they've already reduced her oxygen levels and her sats are just fine, so we at least know everything's OK on the lung front. And she's getting fidgety and moving her legs, so the neural damage/paralysis risk bit is OK, too. As expected, the nurse asked her to wiggle her toes - but I explained she doesn't do toe-wiggling; shuffling her feet around is about the closest, so that had to suffice.

She's obviously finding it difficult to speak at present, but I did catch the question "What day is it?" I think she was surprised to find they'd brought her round so soon. She had an epidural, but now has the good old PCA morphine pump, so that's familiar ground.

I still don't know if they managed to complete the entire job today - I will need to speak to one of the surgical team tomorrow to find out. I will let people know when she's back on ward - the ICU staff seemed to think it might be tomorrow!

I'm going to settle down now with this large glass of scotch and think about sleep soon. It's 23:34 and it's been a long day.

Night-night.

"Hubby".