It all ties into the same thing really...

Hubby needed a quadruple bypass and 2 Atrio-Septal Defects(holes in his heart, congenital) closed. The ASD's he'd been born with, the blockages had many possible causes including long term high dose hydrocortizone treatment and a Southern diet. Hard to say which one is worse, but according to his cardiologist he should already have "Expired".

I know, makes him sound like a carton of milk or something. It was a pretty stark choice of doing nothing and having a max of 7 or 8 years at the absolute best, or having the surgery and maybe getting another 35. Well there were a few bumps in the road, the Great BugWar Saga, etc, but...

0530 Tuesday morning, we arrived to get hubby checked in for surgery. Now for most people that would be a tad early. Not so for us, I work nights and bedtime is around 0600, so it was really late. We'd done our crying on each other for a few hours before it was time to leave. By 0630, the prep nurse whisked him off for shaving. I had a moment of pity for her.. contemplating the imminent loss of her tools within a forest of fur...

Apparently she managed the task quite efficiently, because all too soon she called me in to see him before they went off to surgery. I managed not to cry on him but I did have to take a few minutes in the room before I could go back out in public. For the next 7 hours I did whatever I could manage to distract myself from the idea that I just might leave the hospital a widow. It didn't work very well, although I think it did help a little to share a waiting room with other families, I didn't cry as much as I probably would have had I been alone.

When the nurse came out to tell me that he was off the coronary bypass machine and they were closing, I was not able to hold it together well at all. So after about the 5th go at makeup repairs he was finally out and the surgeon told me all went very well. Another 3 repairs later I was able to see him, still asleep but ALIVE!!!

After another 3 hours they woke him up, he was fully coherent, enough to grumble at me not to be openly affectionate. Given that the ICU staff had it right, that I am his wife(Although I did have to sort a few of em out that I wasn't his daughter... I can't say I was offended.), they didn't find my behavior at all odd. I any case, After I had a chance to talk to him and manage to not cry on him too much I sorta had an adrenaline crash and since there wasn't anywhere for me to crash, had to go home.

Sleeping turned out to be a not possible thing, so here I am...