successful surgery!

well....it was a long 8 hours. the night before they moved her surgery up to 11. then when she got there, they pushed it back to 1. originally it was scheduled for 12. what a mess. as if anxiety wasn't high enough for AUNT TERRI, uncle tim or anyone else. the waiting was horrible. that was just one of the reasons i wish it had been ME on that table instead of her.
before surgery we all snuck back to see her in pre-op. where there was only a limit of 2 visitors per patient, we knew AUNT TERRI would be a rebel...so we rebelled with her. it was all fine and good until nurse RATCHET came along. for the rest of the day when she walked by i gave her the stink eye and the "bird" from Friends.
i was able to meet the doctor before she went in, and the first thing she did was ask for a hug from the doctor. so the first thing i did when the doctor was done telling us how the surgery went was give him a hug from her. she would have done it if she could, i told him. then after we all started dispersing to the ICU waiting room, i stopped and gave tim a huge hug. i asked him if he was a little more relieved, and of course we all are just that little bit more. a lot more "relieving" steps to go though.
so during the wait, uncle tim of course wouldn't leave the room. it was full of friends/family. there were 12 of us at one point. everyone was there pretty much all day long.
we talked about anything and nothing. the area was filled with lots of nonsense talk. me with my Harley-Davidson book thirsting for knowledge preparing for my mid-life crisis to come, kathy with her vogue magazine cracking up at the 100 sex questions answered in 20 words or less. for waiting...it passed somewhat quickly. but i'm sure it didn't for uncle tim. you could just see it in his eyes. i don't know who i felt worse for, AUNT TERRI or him. i worry about him. heck, he's been around me as long as i can remember, so he's as much of a brother to me as AUNT TERRI is a sister. God, please help him get through this. help him to be able to work next week and the time after until AUNT TERRI comes home. please give him some inner peace to feel comfort. Amen!
so we were updated every 2 hours, and they were pretty precise about that. which was good. every update were that things were going well! AMEN!
finally, as the waiting room was closing at 7pm and we were being pushed into a much smaller room, we got a call that they would be closing in 20-30 minutes and the doctor would be with us shortly thereafter. we were done talking with the doctor at 7:36pm, so that was accurate as well.
the doctor came down and told us how the surgery went, and that (THANK GOD) were able to do a lot of it laproscopically so they didn't have to make a huge incision from side to side as planned. instead she has 4 small holes and one approx. 4 inch incision. this should speed up her recovery considerably. we were all THRILLED for this. thank you God for this!!!! they also believe that they got all the tumor with no evidence of spreading YEAH!!!! more prayers for this one. now they will run pathology on the tumor to determine the best course of medicine after. but it all sounds good.
so off to ICU waiting room we go. there were no bed in the step-down unit (where she needed to go) so they were going to put her in the ICU. but there was a wait for a bed there, too.
tim and rachel busted through to recovery to see her. rachel didn't like the way she looked with all the tubes and wires, but obviously we still couldn't all wait to see her. and by golly, we were going to wait. at one point they said they had empty rooms, but were waiting for them to be cleaned and this could take 2 hours. so at 10pm, we had dinner and waited. it really wasn't long after that that we got to see her and i thought she looked great. good color, hair didn't even look too bad (for wearing one of those stupid hats for so long). the only things on her face were and oxygen cannula and a tube in her nose (feeding tube?). she wasn't opening her eyes, but she was responsive to our talking. we stayed only for a minute at a time and i knew i'd be able to sleep, now that i'd seen her. i cried 2 times that day...after the doctor told us all went well...and then all the way home. i cried and prayed for continual and quick recovery and for no reoccurence. please pray for those things as well.
i hope to somehow figure out a way to be there every day. it's hurting me so much not to be there right now. i hate thinking i won't be able to get there today. but i know i will be there for sure the next 3. so i'm trying not to look beyond that.

thanks for all your prayers. keep them coming!!! i will keep you updated.

also, i am going to try to post a little later about an ICU "incident". it's quite comical! so keep a look out. part of it is because it's too funny not to share, and the other part is i want AUNT TERRI to read it when she's better. she needs a good laugh, too!