The missing week… well, missing for me that is.

SO, successful surgery under my belt and sleeping in ICU, the wee hours of Saturday slowly become morning.  Saturday the sun rises and I am alive, gloriously alive and that is a miracle.  Suzanne stayed the whole night at the Hospital in that small waiting room to be there just in case something happened.  But on Saturday and Sunday I was awake and aware, nodding when I was asked questions and squeezing fingers in response to being spoken to.  I was able to recognize friends and family.  Respond to and understand questions.  I was me in spite of what I had been through.  Sometime over the weekend Dr. Odeh did a spinal tap on my back to try to get the blood flowing to my spine again.  That was left in for 24 hours and then taken out as my spine was not responding to the effort.  Sunday the lung specialist told my surgeon that he needed to drain the blood in my chest because my lung had collapsed and I was having trouble breathing.  The vascular surgeon, Dr. Chung, was not in agreement.  See… the blood had purposely been left in my chest in the hopes that it would clot the torn area of my aorta and thus give extra support to the repair.  The goal was to leave the blood for at least a week.  This was not, of course, my body's plan.  Monday morning arrived and Dr. Chung told everyone that I was doing well and that things would be left as is for now.  This was about 8 am.  Come 10 am the story changed.  Dr. Chung came back and said that the distress on my lung was so bad that he had no choice but to operate to drain the blood so my lung could inflate and I could breathe.  This is when he told Suzanne and Jay that this surgery was extremely risky and that the likelihood of me surviving was very low.  During this surgery if I for any reason started to bleed then there would be no way for the team to stop the bleeding and I would die, no way to save me if that happened.  His outlook was very bleak and that was understandably very scary for Suzanne, especially since she had to sign the consent forms.

Surgery on Monday afternoon to remove the blood was successful and they drained 3 liters of blood from my chest cavity and inserted a drainage tube to drain off residual fluids.  Once again, I beat the odds and surprised the surgery team.  Thank the Lord he had his hands on me the whole time.  Monday turns to Tuesday and something is wrong.  For some reason I was vacant and non-responsive.  I wouldn't listen or respond to any questions or look at anyone.  I favored my left side and kept sliding myself into the top left corner of my bed.  Dr. Chung told everyone that this was the result of my brain lacking oxygen and blood for over 10 minutes on Friday and that was just how I was going to be from then on.  They also suspected that I had had a stroke while in surgery.  Tuesday was a bad day indeed.

Wednesday is another day… I will continue the story from there.  Until then friends… Tell the people in your life that you love them, don't wait, for you are not guaranteed a tomorrow.

With Much Love,

Sonnie