The Patient

Surgery went fine and Biju is home recovering.

We had planned on my parents coming into town last night to care for the boys this morning, but they had an emergency come up (as happens from time to time when you live on a farm and care for animals!). We called upon our trusty friends, the Rouses, to watch the boys. We dropped them off at 7:30am and Angie gave us a heads up that the road we were going to take to the Surgery Center was closed and Mapquested a different route for us. We got to the center at 8am and got checked in. (the previous part was written on Friday after the surgery, the rest is going to be written today, Sunday)

After the nurse called Biju back to get ready, I started working on a crochet project and listening to The Soloist, a book on MP3. The nurse came to get me around 9:30 to tell me he was set up and just waiting for the doctor to get done with his previous surgery. I went in and visited with him for awhile then went back out into the waiting room. I packed my stuff up and went out to the van to call Angie and check on the boys, then called my mom to talk for a bit. I had forgotten my phone, so I was using Biju's cell phone. I walked across the parking lot to grab a sandwich from Wendy's dollar menu, then headed back into the waiting room. I was able to make quite a bit of progress on my crochet project before Dr. L came out to tell me they were done. This was a little after 11am (so surgery probably only lasted about 45 minutes, I'm guessing). Dr. L showed me pictures of Biju's knee before surgery, then afterwards. He also went over some previous damage that had been done to Biju's knee about 8 years ago when he broke it (playing Badminton). About a half hour or so after speaking with the doc, the nurse came to tell me Biju was waking up. I went in to visit with him. He was still a bit groggy from the anesthesia but was coherent. I gave him some water and the nurse came to talk with us. After awhile, Biju was "with it" enough to get up to leave. The nurse went over his medications and how to care for the wound, then taught me how to work the Ice Man. The Ice Man is basically a little cooler that holds ice and water, and has a tube running to a little plastic pad. The pad goes over the area to be iced, and the ice water is continuously pumped in a cycle to keep the pad cold.

We left the center around 1 and headed to the store to buy some soup. The anesthesia wasn't playing nice with Biju's tummy so we were advised to keep food light for awhile. He got sick while I was in the store (thankfully the Center had sent home a bag for containment!). We zipped through the pharmacy drive through so they could start filling his medication, then got home. Angie pulled in the drive about one minute after we did. She took a sleeping Alex straight to his crib then pulled the car seats out of her van to move them back to ours. I got Biju set up in bed with some soup and crackers, and got his Ice Man hooked up. Once Biju had about half of his soup, he was ready to sleep. Ajay and I then headed out to pick up the medication and a handful of movies for the weekend.

The weekend has been fairly uneventful. The Ice Man goes through quite a bit of ice, but not nearly as much as we were told (we were told the cooler would need refilled every 2 hours, and we're finding it to be more like 6-8 hours). Biju's stomach is back to normal, no more nausea, so he's able to eat his normal diet.

Alex and I are sick again. More colds. Alex even has a slight fever. He was at 100.8 when he woke up. I'm wondering where the maid has gone, because the house is starting to look a little unkempt!

Here is Biju set up in bed after we got home from surgery. The boys, of course, were quite curious about what was on Daddy's leg.

Here is a close-up of the Ice Man. The cooler, the a/c adapter, the tube with a thermostat, and you can see where the tube attatches to the pad, which is under the bandages. We were told to be sure we disconnect the power before we disconnected the tube from the pad - otherwise water would spurt out! The boys are still interested in the cooler and often get reprimanded for climbing on top of it.

Biju's first physical therapy appointment is tomorrow. We'll see what type of exercises they'll want him to do from home. They will also change his bandage for the first time, and teach him how to wrap it back up. He should be back to work on Wed, then he'll be off all next week for Thanksgiving break. He should get some nice recouperation time in - we just need to be sure he gets those exercises in, too!