We had plans for this summer and none of them involved hospitals for once (the past few summers I've either been recovering from surgery (gall bladder last year), pregnant (Grace 2009), recovering from a miscarriage (2008), nursing (2007) or pregnant (Nathaniel 2006). This year it was Brian's turn. His Crohn's disease (which he was diagnosed with in 2007 and had a flare up in 2009), reared it's ugly nasty head again...and he was in the hospital twice up here. Once within 2 days of the semester ending (for a total of 5 days) and again in June (only 3 days that time). Surgery was decided upon. We headed south on the 11th of July and stayed with his brother in Woodland. His surgery was the 12th in Sacramento at UC Davis Medical Center. They estimated he'd be in 7 to 10 days...and figured most likely it would only be 7. He left on the 23rd. We spent a few days at his brother's again after the surgery so that he wouldn't have to make the 5 hour trip (each way) home and back and home again. He had two doctor appointments that next week, so it was best to stay. But we'd not planned on staying that long when we left.
The surgeon he had was wonderful. She has done a lot of Crohn's surgeries. And she told him he was one of the worst she'd ever seen. He had resections done in two places in his bowels and had a total of 12 inches removed. He had them take a picture in surgery (I won't post those here) and ended up with 31 staples.
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| The kids missed us, I think. I'm sure Grandma, Grandpa and Great Grandma really did, as they took care of them for us! |
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| One bonus was being able to spend time with Brian's sister, Cindy. She was out visiting from Kansas and doing some rehab after a stroke she had in the Spring. She and I enjoyed Terry & Theresa's pool :) |
Recovery is a slow process, and as a nursing student, he understands that, but still thinks he should be healing faster. And school starts on August 15th so he's nervous about that. Lots of other things went on with his surgery and hospital stay, but this is the basics. He shouldn't have issues with it now...hopefully...at least not for many years. What medications he may need to be on are not determined yet, and nothing has been said about a special diet. But it really making us think about what we eat and how much of certain things we eat. So now, we're hoping that Summer 2012 will be one without medical type complications :)
