In the last post, I left off just before my consult with a brain surgeon. When the ER doctor told me I had a chronic brain bleed because of my fall that scared me more than I have been in a long time.  When the surgeon told me he needed to go in and fix it and to relieve the pressure, my life didn’t flash before my eyes but I was thinking this could be the end. After I agreed to the surgery I started thinking about what if these were my last hours?

I told my wife I didn’t want to scare her too much but here is the password for my computer if you need to get into anything financial.  I have paid all the bills and have for some time and since she is seven years older than me it was just assumed that she would go first so she didn’t need to know the details. From this lesson, I learned that we need to be prepared for any circumstance so in the coming days I will be laying out what is where and what needs to be done if I can’t do it.

It was about 1:30 pm when I signed the consent forms and then a couple of people came in to start IV lines. I soon discovered that one of them was an RN but the other was a  trainee. Long story short, I think they give all us seniors as practice cushions for those who haven’t learned about veins and such as this guy struggled with finding a place to put the needle. When he actually tried to insert it his hands were shaking. After several failed attempt the teacher finally took over and two IVs were in place.

As I was about to go into the operating room at 3:00 pm I told them that I have a prostate problem and my bladder would likely lock up so I suggested they put in a catheter while in the operating room to take care of that. The people taking me in kind of nodded agreement. Then it was off to the cold sterile room to be cut for the first time.  I saw several scrub nurses and the anesthesiologist but didn’t see the surgeon before I was put under. I said a quick prayer and then was out.

Of course, it seemed like I then woke immediately up with several people hovering over me mouthing words which of course I couldn’t understand. At first, I thought, “is this what heaven is like?” but quickly lost that thought and realized I had made it through the surgery. I laid in post-op it seemed like an hour or more and then it was off to a Critical Care room. Dr. P., my hero of the day, was there pretty quickly saying that everything went well and all the bleeding was taken care of and now it was on to a month-long recuperation period.