This is a long journal entry... you are warned...As most know by now, Travis had his surgery a week ago to have 1/2 of his thyroid removed. I sent him off to the operating room (after being able to write on his neck, nurse approved!) at about 12. The Dr. told me it would take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half and that he would come let me know how it was going when Trav's thyroid was removed and sent to the pathologist. Going off of that information I took the hospital pager and ran next door to Walgreens for some grub and hurried back. Books were supposed to keep my occupied and I had my amazing and wonderful new Kindle that my parents gave me for my birthday, but I kept getting distracted, hoping the Dr. would come through the door. at about 3:00 pm, still no word. Yes, 3 hours later! And the cute little old lady that had been manning the desk had to go home, so we had to answer the phone ourselves. Working on my day off! Eventually, at about 4 I was able to find someone to inquire about my seemingly lost in the shuffle boyfriend. It was starting to worry me but I was told he was still in the O.R. and that the Dr. would be out in 15 to talk to me .... no, that did nothing to ease the worry. Finally, around 5:00 pm the Dr. came out and took me to a back room, something none of the other Dr's in the last 5 hours had done with the other family members, so my concern took a steep hike. Turns out once they got into Trav's neck they saw how one side was growing up and curving around the cartilage by his voicebox and the other side was also a lot larger than what they expected. Continuing on the unexpected train, his whole thyroid was covered with a "massive" blood vessel community. Thus, the whole thyroid needed to be taken out. That's my man, taking something the Dr. said should be a chip shot and turning it into a 5 hour difficult surgery, making the Dr. really work for his money! The big thing in all of this was that Travis had said numerous times he didn't want the whole thing taken out because then he'd have to take a pill every day for the rest of his life, in the morning, an hour before eating. I knew he would be very disappointed and frustrated by the news and did not relish being the one to tell him. Thankfully I didn't have to do it right away since Travis decided on taking 4 more hours to sleep ha ha. When I finally was able to tell him, he took it like a champ, though he was very out of it and groggy, to say the least. I explained everything the Dr. told me and just sat with him for a couple hours. It was not fun to see him so un-Travis-like and in pain.
Throughout all of this a big storm hit the area and trees were falling, power going out (thankfully not in the hospital!) and I wasn't looking forward to the hour long, in good weather, drive back home, especially since I was exhausted and didn't want to be so far away from the hospital. My mom, the amazing and intuitive woman that she is decided that a hotel room was a good way for me to feel her hug me from across the country. I spent the night only 4 minutes away from the hospital. It felt great to relax while watching TLC and eating pizza and breadsticks, trying to distract myself from the fact that Trav was in pain and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Did I say yet that my mom is AMAZING? I was able to take Travis home the next day and had fun driving in the weather. While we were stopped at one light, lightning and wind hit a box half a block down that knocked out power to the stoplight I was at. Crazy!! It was wonderful to make it back in one piece. I'm happy that Travis is feeling better now after a week of recovery, and feel that having slept 11 hours two nights in a row, I am mostly recovered as well :)
It was a good learning experience and I'm blessed I was able to be there for him. Now if I can only get a Dr. to look at his head.... no, really, he has a bump he needs to get removed... ha ha
