Jeff is on the road to recovery....finally

Well I guess even with this blog, email and the amazing invention of the telephone I am still terrible at keeping people updated on life's events. I realized this today as I emailed Aunt Mert today to let her know that he was out of surgery and in recovery. She apparently was one of several people that I neglected to even tell he was having surgery. I am so bad at this communication thing!

So, here's the deal. He has been struggling with diverticulitis since August 2007 when it perforated his colon. He had an 8 day hospital visit then and when he was released he was told that many times it can be treated with diet and being cautious (and having a prescription on file at all times). Well that plan worked well for a few months and then as time passed he was having more and more pain. Then about the beginning of the year, he had a tough bout with it has pretty much been on antibiotics about 3 weeks of every 5-6 weeks since then.

A couple of weeks ago, I made him an appointment and he had a CAT scan done. His gastro doctor told him to make an appointment with the surgeon because it definitely would require surgical intervention at this point. She explained to him that basically his body has built up so much scar tissue that the colon was narrowing and had the potential for another rupture. The surgeon agreed and 10 days later, here we are!

We got to the hospital (Methodist Hospital, Sugarland) this morning about 6am and they started his surgery about 830am. The surgery lasted about 2 hours and he spent a little over an hour in the recovery area. They finally got him into a room and he slept for another couple of hours. Only in the last hour or so has he been waking more regularly. They have him on a morphine pump and I think he wakes up when the medicine wears off. He only sleeps about 15 minutes at a time so it looks like it will be a long night.

As for the expected outcome....they were able to do the surgery laparoscopically so that is a good thing, I suppose. The surgeon told us that the procedure itself isn't much different but the scars are less. He is in alot of pain right now, but they are doing what they can to help him there too. He just met the nighttime nurse and remembered that he didn't care for her the last time he was here so it may be a long night. I am going to work on convincing him how much better he will feel in the long run if he will try to move around a bit. I know it will hurt, but I feel like I can empathize with him since I have had 3 c-sections and my tubes tied. Maybe he will at least realize that I know partly what he feels.

Anyway, that's about it for now. The kids are at home with my mom for the week. Amy has summer band and is starting her softball practice back up. Then there's school clothes shopping and sports try-outs in the next couple of weeks. Oh yeah, and school starts on the 24th. Why does it seem that the older they get, school becomes secondary to everything else. Luckily I am blessed with the world's smartest kids so it isn't too much of a struggle that school's main focus for her is to socialize.

Thanks for checking in on us. Love to you all!