Joe's Surgery

Joe had his surgery a little over a week ago! We went to the hospital early on Friday May 21st. (which also happened to be our 6 month anniversary) Joe was really nervous about all that was going to be done. I tried my best to comfort him and let him know everything would be fine. He wasn't too happy about me taking pictures, but he still let me do it so I could blog about it=)

This was right after we got there. They put us in this little room and had him change into his hospital gown

If that's not a dirty look, I don't know what is!=) Here he is in his gown. The nurse came and took his blood pressure and asked him a bunch of questions before a guy came and got him and took him up to a different floor to the anesthesiologist and the surgical rooms. I headed to the waiting room for about 3 hours before the doctor came out and told me everything went well and he was in recovery waiting to wake up. When they were ready to move him up to a different floor to stay overnight, they had me meet him and the nurse and we went up together. He was really sleepy, and kept saying he was in pain. They couldn't give him medication until he woke up a little bit more, but when they did he said he felt better. On a scale of 1 t0 10 he rated the pain at about a 7 after medication. His nose started to bleed, and they had this thing that went from ear to ear and held gauze under his nose. I had to change it every few hours. When I looked up his nose all I could see was dried blood, and wet blood in spots. He had splints up his nose (that he got out on Wednesday and can now tell a big difference in the amount of air he gets through his nose) and he said his throat felt like the worst sore throat ever. He couldn't even sip water in the beginning, and when he tried he just spit it up with a bunch of blood. I felt so bad watching him be in so much pain. I sat in a chair right next to his bed read while he was going in and out of sleep. He kept reaching over to hold my hand. He started with some ice chips, and later some ice cream. He hardly ate anything at all though. He said he wasn't hungry and it hurt too much to eat anything. When most people get their tonsils out they go home that day, but because the doctor did so many other things he wanted to monitor him overnight and make sure he was ok before he sent Joe home. He ended up getting a fever and staying another night. They needed him to get up and walk around to get his lungs to expand. The doctor was worried about fluid building up and causing pnemonia. He had to do deep breathing, and the doctor put him on oxycodone for the pain. The hardest thing was swallowing. He had a bunch of mucus build up and couldn't exactly get it up so the doctor brought in this machine like they have at the dentist that he would just close his lips around and it would suck everything up. It was pretty cool and helped out a ton!

This was the second day. He had gotten rid of the gauze under his nose by then and didn't look as bad. I felt bad taking a picture the first day because he was sleeping and looked so miserable.

Maggie, Dave, and Serena came to the Hospital to visit him on Saturday. They made a cute poster that we hung on the wall that brightened the room, and brought balloons and a homemade card. It was so nice to have them visit. Time seemed to pass quicker and it brightened Joe's spirit.

They left to go eat dinner and came back with a yummy dessert! Apple crisp and ice cream! It was SO good! We all ate dessert and then went for a walk with Joe. We went to the nursery to show Maggie the babies, and then strolled around the hospital.

Thanks SO much for coming to visit! It totally brightened our day and meant a lot to Joe.

Joe is doing much better. He still experiences moments of extreme pain (usually at night when his throat dries up while he sleeps) but everything is healing well. His throat scabbed and they have fallen off now. He is eating more than just soup and ice cream now. He has lot 16 pounds!! He really appreciates all the calls and texts. Hopefully in about another week he will be completely back to normal and able to sleep better and have more energy! Thank you for all your prayers on his behalf!