Thomas had surgery

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Thomas had his surgery on Monday (May 2nd.) It went off without too many problems and he’s had a pretty swift recovery thus far.

We left the house around 6:30AM to get to the hospital at our appointment time of 7:15AM. Thomas was scheduled for surgery at 9:20AM. We made it on time and got settled in. Many of the nurses in the recovery room were familiar and one in particular, Julie, remembered us from when Thomas got his cast on a month earlier. As has been the case in the past, everybody was really, really helpful and friendly.

Thomas was taken to his surgery so Amy and I decided to finally eat some breakfast. LaBou was the meal of choice since the grill was closed at the cafeteria. The surgery went less than two hours and we were able to see Thomas shortly after he came out. Geoff was able to do the cast again but he was almost out of the neon green tape so he used a darker green tape and made a neon green swirl on it. It looks pretty neat.

Waking up took a while. The surgery was shorter than anticipated so Thomas got a bit more anesthesia than he needed. Dr. Solomon showed us a picture of the leg and we were able to see a bone that had full mass rather than the thin bone we’d seen in past pictures. Awesome! Once he was breathing and the Julie was confident he was doing well, we took him up to the 7th floor of Davis tower (where we’d spend almost two weeks a month earlier.) We got settled into a room and were pretty sure we’d be staying the night. I came home to do some work before heading back for the evening. A few hours later, Amy called to tell me there was a chance Thomas would be heading home. After going round and round a bit Thomas and I ended up staying the night. He slept well but as usual, I didn’t. So life goes.

On Tuesday, we got discharged and the ride home was fairly uneventful. Thomas had a bit of discomfort but that was to be expected given that he had major surgery. We were told to keep an eye on his temperature as it was around 101 degrees. Dr. Lind explained that this is likely due to Thomas’ lungs and the effects of the anesthesia upon them. We were given a device to help Thomas take deep breaths and help the lungs out.

His fever came and went with the Tylenol we were giving him. However, Wednesday his temperature was going over 101 degrees and we were told to call if that happened. I left a couple of messages with the advice nurse throughout the day but we never got a call back. Around 4PM, his temperature was over 103 degrees. Tylenol and Motrin brought it back down. I finally got a call through to a human being and an appointment was schedules for Thursday at 9AM. As fate would have it, Thomas’ temperature didn’t get high again.

Early Thursday morning Thomas’ temperature was a little over 100 degrees and that was the case as well when we got to the ortho clinic. We got a window cut into Thomas’ cast so Dr. Solomon could get a good look at the leg. Cutting open the cast and poking around was pretty painful for Thomas, but he did a fantastic job. The good news was that there was no infection. The window was simply taped back in place in case we need to inspect it again. We were told to keep an eye on the fever and come back if it spiked up again. Hopefully that won’t be happening.

Given how fast Thomas has been recovering I expect him to be back up walking around by early next week. The cast is scheduled to come off on May 19th. We are all counting the days!

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Patrick Lawrence
By Patrick Lawrence

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