Not EA

Ben's surgery went great yesterday. The results are: it was adhesions in the same place as his last surgery and there was no sign of the epiploic appendagitis. So that is great news! He cleaned up the adhesions and did a thorough look around. Everything else looked normal. He said if this didn't fix the pain there was nothing else we could do, but Ben can already tell a difference in the pain. The pain he had before the surgery is gone and now it's just the normal after surgery pain. They kept him in the hospital last night just to make sure the pain was under control. My brother was awesome enough to stay home with the dogs so I was able to stay with Ben at the hospital. And it's a good thing I did. We are not impressed with the in-patient care there. By the time he left recovery and got to his room it was about 430 or so. We got him settled and everything and they went to call in his dinner order but the cafeteria people had already left. They knew Ben was staying the night, you would have thought they would have had something ordered for him. They didn't. So I ran to the commissary to grab some snacks and Burger King to grab some dinner. I was gone for like half an hour, and in that time no one came to check on him. He had been trying to get ahold of the nurses, but the call button on his bed wasn't working (and they hadn't bothered giving him the one that did), he tried waving to the camera but apparently no one was looking, and he tried yelling but after having the anesthesia tube down his throat for the surgery that didn't work too well. He was close to tears by the time I got back. So I grabbed the nurse and got him taken care of. The rest of the night wasn't much better. The only times they really came in was shift change and to do vitals every 4 hours. It was a bit frustrating. Not that it wasn't anything I couldn't handle, but I'm sure you get the idea. We couldn't have been happier to get out of there. Their discharge procedures aren't very good either. They basically told him what meds he's supposed to take, that his activity level should be as tolerated, his diet is as tolerated, and his follow up appt is in two weeks but they didn't give us a day or time. Then they had him just walk out. Seriously?! I was down at the pharmacy getting his meds and they tell him to just walk out?! No wheel chair, no escort, no nothing. He came out of the elevator just as I was getting ready to go up. So we were happy to get out of there. We left about 945 and were home about 11. But we're home now, he's resting, and things are alright. He's on convalescent leave for 2 weeks, we go back on Sept 2nd to get his staples out (he's got 15), and he probably won't have to go back to work until the Tuesday after Labor Day. So we're going to make sure he's all healed up this time. But yeah, that's the latest news from here. Surgery went well, and it wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it was. I'm still very glad it's over though. It's so much easier to be the patient than the one sitting in the waiting room. :)