June 23, 2010 - Day of Surgery

Surgery was right on time and right before it was time for her to leave our Pastor and his wife came to pray for Sadie and the surgery; it was the perfect timing and we really felt that it helped all of us through what is always a high anxiety part. We gave hugs (and a few more) to Sadie and she was off to the OR by 8:55. We anticipated it would be around 11:30+ we heard from the doctor and at 12:00 we were call to meet with him. He said the surgery itself went really well; he was able to fix the area of impingement and realign the heel bone along with successfully completing the subtaylor fusion. We have an actual picture to show us the new hardware he put in and to show us the area he removed. He also confirmed he took about a tablespoon of synovium from around the area of impingement.

After we talked to Dr. M we were sent back to wait until she had a room assigned. It didn’t’ feel like it took long to get that page, which made us feel hopeful that Sadie would be joining us from recovery very shortly. We found the room and waited and waited... An hour and a half later I started to get a bad feeling and asked the nurse if there was any way she could get an update. She returned and told us that Sadie was having a hard time getting her pain under control, but they think they turned a corner and she should be up in about 10 minutes. Thirty minutes passed and we asked again… same story; she is in a lot of pain and they can’t seem to get it under control with morphine, adivan or her block (which is through a catheter in her leg). At 2:45 they brought her up and she was so relieved to see us, she immediately grabbed onto me and didn’t’ let go. It reminded me of the last surgery she had in February of 2010. She looked so tired, so worn down and was still in a great deal of pain. By 3:30 there were teams of doctors streaming in all coming up with plans for helping with her pain, but at this time she had already had so much pain medication she was feeling very sick and within a short time she was getting sick. It is now 8:00 and Sadie has had some relief from pain through many changes, new medication given through her cathider in her leg and change of medications from morphine to hydromorphone. She is also on one other medication and although she is doing a bit better with pain and has been able to fall asleep for short stents, she wakes up feeling very sick still (they are giving her anti nausea medication too).

The minutes during surgery felt like hours and the minutes waiting for her to come out of recovery felt even worse – knowing she was in so much pain and we couldn’t even be there to comfort her in presents is horrible. The last few hours (now 5 hours) have felt like days…

This surgery today is going to affect us for the remainder of this year, but hopefully bettering the rest of her life.

THANK YOU for your prayers and please continue to lift her up for healing. I have been praying that this could just be the end of this suffering for her; that she can, through this surgery, have the opportunity to live pain free (or at least with very limited pain) and be able to do things she has never done.