Hospital Visits

You know the saying, right? November comes in like a lion and out like a lamb? Oh wait. Is that not November? Maybe that's just our November! ;)

I wanted to pause here at the end of the week to thank all of you for being so kind to us this week, asking about Ryan's mom, praying with and for us, and not expecting perfection from us. (It's okay if you did expect perfection, but I fear you've been sadly disappointed.)

I thought I'd share with you a bit about our day at the hospital on Monday and also give you an update on Ryan's mom!

As I shared with you earlier this week, the whole surgery thing came up so quickly. She was in the operating room before even a week had passed since she found out she had a tumor at all! Quick, quick, quick!

One of the downfalls of working in health care is that it's hard to get time off work, because your schedule is filled up so far out. But Ryan's co-workers were amazing and pitched in to cover his patients so he could be gone on Monday and spend the day at the hospital. There were (ahem) twenty-seven in Nita's waiting room entourage. I know. It boggles the mind.

We had a beautiful day to drive down to Indy, and our drive was smooth until we got about two miles from the hospital. There, much like a football game, the last five minutes took thirty. (Hello detours, road construction, confused GPS systems, and convoluted hospital campuses.) But we got there!

When we arrived, she was being prepped for surgery, and it took so long, we weren't sure we'd be able to see her at all before they took her back. But a portion of the entourage (a large portion) made a human caravan to the back to give her one more hug before surgery. And she wanted one more picture with the grandkids. I was amazed at how calm she was. (I remember melting down on an O.R. nurse before gallbladder surgery, so I couldn't believe how calm she was over brain surgery.

Surgery was supposed to take four hours. They said they would start at noon, but they actually didn't start until 1:00. Most of the entourage went to the cafeteria for lunch, so we watched all the luggage. (And I worked.)

When they returned, we headed out in search of food. Since it was such a nice day, we decided to walk down the road to cheaper food. :)

We got back right before 3:00 and walked in to hear the news that they were closing her up. It had only been two hours! I won't lie: I thought that probably wasn't good news. They'd said four hours minimum. To be done in two was probably not great.

When the doctor arrived in the waiting room, he was swarmed by most of the entourage and delivered his news quickly. Like he was seriously only there about three minutes. I snapped this during that part. Nita loved it when it showed it to her later.

Everyone was relieved to hear that they closed early because the surgery just went that well, not because they found surprises that warranted giving up. We would have to wait to see her, so Ryan and I waited as we do best:

If there's a hospital coffee shop, we'll find it, baby!

Oh, and I did some of this too:

I think it was close to three hours later when they finally allowed Allen (Ryan's step-dad) and Grandpa (Nita's dad) to go back and see her for just about two minutes. She was awake, joking, and they both felt very relieved that she looked as good as a person can look right after brain surgery.

So when we left Monday night, all we knew was that the surgery went well, and recovery would begin...and answers for the future would come in time.

We also knew we wanted Chick-fil-A.

We did not go back to the hospital Tuesday. Ryan returned to work, I watched our nephews and niece all day, and we had our fall pictures taken that night. But we did get to FaceTime with her at lunch, and the very first thing I noticed was that she had life back in her eyes. I hadn't seen any light or sparkle in her eyes for many weeks. So that was HUGE! She was talking coherently, making jokes, and had great coloring, I thought.

We did go back Wednesday (Halloween) when Ryan got off work. Nita had a really good day that day. She'd been awake a lot of the day, she lost her "mummy" bandage, and she seemed to have a great appetite. We were there about two hours, and in that time, she didn't fall asleep once. (When we had been at her house last Saturday, I had to keep jumping out of my chair literally about every 20 seconds to catch her coffee cup before it hit the floor because she kept falling asleep.) She was extremely alert, carried on great conversations, and she let me take this picture. (I do have permission to post it.)

I told her I was so happy to see life in her eyes, and she said that was the best thing anyone had said to her all day!

Ryan and I took a selfie with the IV pole, but you can barely see it. So it's just a confusing selfie. In an unrelated matter, I had an epic meltdown on the drive to the hospital and ended up crying off every last stitch of my makeup, so I'm sorry. Look fast and keep scrolling.

Ryan's sister came while we were there, so we felt we should probably get in some baby snuggles.

We left and stopped at McAlister's on the way home. Maybe the food was extra good because we were so hungry, but my goodness. It was fantastic. And we had some of the best service I'd ever had anywhere, so I came straight home and took the store survey so I could brag on the whole staff. (Bonus: the manager gave us free cookies!)

We didn't go back to the hospital yesterday either, but we heard she had a bit of a rougher day. My non-medical opinion is that she just had a super great day on Wednesday with a lot of visitors and a lot of awake time and probably just overdid it a little. We know some days will be up and some will be down. So she'll be in another day or two, depending on how things go, and then we'll see what comes next!

Thanks so much for walking this journey with us. We appreciate all of you!

PS - Today marks 71 months for us. Six years ago at this very time, Nita was busy prepping a bridal shower for me, so who knew we'd be in this spot six years later? God. God knew. And He's been really faithful to give us all the strength we need for every single day!

Happy 71 months, Ryan. I love you!