I woke up early on Wednesday. Surgery was scheduled for 1:00. We had dropped the van off at the shop the day before as it was overheating. I stopped at the shop to get the car charger and headed down Garland Road. I was dropping Zanda off for an appointment and was trying to decide between the route through my old neighborhood to show him around or to head down Gaston, a more direct route to the appointment. I opted for Gaston at the last minute and as soon as I did I got a call from the hospital saying they were going to take Randy downstairs at 11:00. It was then about 10:30 and I became frantic. I’m pretty sure I scared Zanda and must apologize to Julie for any abuses to her car. 

I made it to the hospital by 11:00 and Dr. Markham came by and wanted to turn down the Propofol to see if he would rouse up and talk about the surgery. That didn’t happen and was probably a foreshadowing of the last two days struggle to get him awake. About 11:30 the nurse came in and told me Dr. Meyer had just touched down at Love Field. 

It was almost 12:00 before they took him down and the family was mostly there. We chatted for a few minutes and headed for the 4th floor. After sitting there for a few minutes I called Julius to let him know where we were. It was decided that the family would go eat and meet on the 6th floor when we were done.

About 2:00 we finally called Julius and headed up. It was an interesting room where we met where the chairs were too short for the table. I felt like I was in an Edith Ann skit. (For those of you who don’t know what that is check out this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJMKupYF14I)

Julius arrived and we gathered around the table. We began to examine each step of the training manual and the corresponding physical parts. We set off alarms, attached and unattached tubing and batteries, and discussed all the things that could go wrong. The most important part was what to do in case of emergency – check the patient and connections, call 911, and then call the LVAD pager number. I think we all got that one down. We laughed through a lot of it and each person asked questions of which the rest of us did not think. That helped unexpectedly. 

We finished about 5:30 and with an update from Katie found out that they were closing Randy up. WOW!! The afternoon had flown by and no stressful clockwatching had ensued. We headed back to the 4^th floor to wait for Dr. Meyer to come tell us how everything went. It went great!! No problems during surgery and he only got ½ liter of blood.

He was back to his room immediately as they don’t have a recovery area for this type of surgery. The nurses have all been wonderful. I would jump in and do what I can and was even asked if I was a nurse. It’s easy to help when the love of your life is laying there helpless. He didn’t respond to anything that day. 

Thursday morning I was up early again. I headed to the hospital thinking Randy would be awake and ready to run down the hall, at least that’s what I was hoping. Okay, maybe not running but at least sitting up. Not on Thursday. Every once in a while he would roll his eyes. I took a break in the middle of the day to go get the van and do some running around. 

I got back to the hospital around 2:00 and found out that all sedation had been stopped about 10:00. They were a little worried that he wasn’t waking up earlier. There was some more eye-rolling and a few times he even responded by trying to squeeze our hand. I left about 7:30 but Joseph, our son, and Joseph, our adopted son, were waiting to go see Randy. Our son was named for the other Joseph who has been a part of our family almost since he was born a month before our son Jeremy. Randy didn’t respond to them any better than he did for me. 

Friday morning I was up again early but not as early. Did some chores around the house and got ready. More errands to do and finally got to the hospital around 1:00. He was getting more alert so I would talk to him for awhile and occasionally swab his mouth that was so dry. All morning and even after I got there he kept sliding down in the bed. It was somewhat humorous because they would pull him up on the bed and within minutes he was back down with his stomach where his knees should be and his head where his bottom should be. 

He was becoming more and more alert and flashed the peace sign on command. He was biting the tubing and moving it around with his tongue to the point that the nurse thought he would spit it out. He persevered and out came the tubing but only when the respiratory therapist did it. One of the first things he asked for was water. I told him that probably wouldn’t happen but I would ask about ice chips. After discussion between nurse and doctor it was decided he could have some. It could have been the best of Blue Bell ice cream and he wouldn’t have wanted it more than those ice chips. 

Randy’s sister, Lana, and her husband George came by for quite a while. The specialist with the sonogram machine came to change his pick line which I am sure made him mad but he wasn’t fighting it too much. He still wasn’t complaining about pain. Of course we had to leave the room. We were barely back to see him when all the visitors had to leave because of an emergency. Lana and I went and roamed around the gift shop. Then we came back up and found out that there was another emergency and we still couldn’t go back. We found out that a man who had come in two nights ago had died. I remember sitting and talking with his friend when they first arrived. She had no one with her and was having a really hard time. 

I was finally able to get my laptop out of Randy’s room after the shift-change. Jeremy and Patricia, our son and his wife, were there to see him so I didn’t feel too bad about leaving. I was tired and Randy was going to have a good night sleeping. At least, that’s what I thought, since he was no longer restrained and no longer on the ventilator. So I kissed him goodnight again and came home to relax and gather my thoughts again.