They called us on Tuesday to let us know that Randy's check in was at 1:00pm. This gave us plenty of time to get the kids off to school, which was nice. We left for Spokane at 10:00am and made it there well before the check in time. Because Dr. Benage was running ahead of schedule, they were able to have Randy actually headed back for surgery at 1:15pm. But not before he used a camera down Randy's nose to check his vocal cords near the tumor. "I have a little more understanding of what Caden had to endure with all of those feeding tubes."
True to his word, Dr. Benage came out to talk to me pretty close to the two hour mark. Everything had gone according to plan. However, because of how deep the tumor was, he needed a drain. That meant another five hour drive day, this time meeting with the doctor for only five minutes. If I became discouraged, I just reminded myself that to and from Spokane is just 15-20 minutes more than one way to Seattle. Not too bad.
The drive to and from was so beautiful. The skies were a deep, rich blue, with the white puffy clouds and the varying deep greens of Spring fields. It was beautiful. And all lost on Randy...
Who slept for 80% of the way home.
We made it home by 7:00pm, filled prescriptions, got kids to bed, set alarms for pain medication throughout the night, and went to bed before 9:00pm. The relief of having the tumor out, being home, and the PTSD I felt from the whole experience had me near tears. I could not remember a recent time when I was more ready to go to sleep to forget about my reality. It's been a long time.
Oh, and I don't want to forget this:
They make sure the patient is "awake" before bringing back the family. When I arrived, Randy still wasn't opening his eyes, but his vitals were all looking promising. They told me that he'd tried to get up and get out of bed, quickly did a barrel roll, and went right back to sleep. I watched as he became more and more alert, noting that it was taking him much longer than the other adult patient I'd heard in recovery when Randy was being admitted. At one point, I swear he was like a little kids, giving his pouty face that mom was trying to wake him up, turning his face away when they tried to talk to him when he was trying to sleep. It was pretty cute.
And then he did the most adorable thing. Without opening his eyes, he pointed three tiny times at his neck and whispered "ow" in the cutest little boy voice. I couldn't help but smile. They'd told me that it was usually the 7-year olds that are so squirrely when they wake up, and here he was whispering "ow." It was pretty endearing watching him come to. Hard to watch him shake in pain at times, but cute to watch him being childlike when his guard was down.
Drain out tomorrow, stitches out on May 17th, and then this will all fade like the perfectly placed incision until it is just a memory.
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