Papi's Surgery

Today Papi had his kidney removed.
He arrived at the hospital yesterday. He felt ready and confident.
He liked his room, he liked the dark wood parquet floor, he liked his roommate, he liked his bed by the window and the view too.

I did the surgery prep session with him that Lori had done with me from memory, and he was open and able to imagine this whole experience unfolding in a very clear and beautiful way... he felt so much happiness and gratitude at the conclusion.

Friends were praying for him in Hamburg, Theda all the way down south in Chile, and here along with me even some of my mooncircle sent him prayers and good thoughts. Mami saw him in a peach blanket surrounded by a beautiful violet light.

Today most went well. The surgery itself very well. The cut ended up even smaller than predicted, only a bit over 10 cm, and he didn't have to wait all day like his room mate yesterday to be taken into the surgery.

Some lack of communication. The staff sent my mother home from the hospital where she was waiting for him to come out of the wake up room. They told her it could be another two hours and she should just go home, which she did - by bike - she doesn't know how to drive a car - and when she got there, she found a message on their answering machine from my father, he had just been released, and had already called her from his room upstairs.

Some unfortunate malfunctioning. Interesting that this should happen. His pain pump. It's supposed to pump medication right into the tissue surrounding the surgery. It sounds like it never worked when he was starting to use it. Clogged. Pain quite uncomfortable. Not a lot of response to this situation from the nurses. He was given some drops, but they didn't make a difference. And instead of demanding higher dosages, he resigned to wait until the anesthesiologist would get back out of the next surgery she was in. When I finally spoke with him around 8:45pm he was still waiting and the pain had increased even more. I encouraged him to keep ringing that bell until they had given him a high enough dose that would blanket the pain. This is not a time to suffer. This is a time to be pleasantly plunged into a fog of medication. I made him promise me to do this - first thing after we hung up.

He is glad it is over. Mami said he looked quite well. She is glad it is over too.