Surgery day

This should be entitled "the longest day" as it was slated as an 8 to 10 hour surgery.  The thought of being 4 hours from anyone familiar if catastrophe struck was daunting, but my friend Patty Hans surprised me by  announcing her plan to come with me!  That was a gift beyond anything I could ask.  

We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 am.  The day started out auspiciously; first when they whisked Kevin and I back to preop, and my phone inside my purse suddenly belted out Mary Chapen Carpenter, "why walk when you can fly"' a song once very special to me.  The preop nurse told me that her son was a "graduate" of Dr. Bradford; he'd had the same surgery she was performing on Kevin today. That was 10 years ago, and he is doing well today.  The anesthesiology resident arrived wearing a USC surgical cap, alma mater of my friend, Emily's.  After I put him through his paces as to exactly how he would keep my COPD husband alive under anesthesia for 8 to 10 hours, and what systems did he have in place if his plan failed.  He was a rock star with all good answers, so I told him he could take my husband out to play. I learned he did his undergrad and med school at USC, and had applied to UCI (where I previously worked as an Anesthesiology coordinator) but ended up at U of M.  

All too soon, they whisked Kevin off to the OR, leaving me with a light up, vibrating disc that would alert me to come to surgical reception where I would get updates about every 2 hours, mostly consisting of, "everything is proceeding as scheduled."  I received those messages at 9:30, 11:30, and then 20 minutes later, I received another alert.  This time, the message was, "we 're going to put you in a room so the doctor can talk to you, and if you have someone here with you, you may want to go get them."  My heart was in my throat as Patty and I waited for Dr. Bradford ( expecting to tell me Kevin was dead...) She strolled in with a huge smile, telling me the surgery went extremely well, got clean margins, and altho the tumor was wrapped around the facial nerve as suspected, the auditory nerve was clean, and the ear canal was spared.  She did lymph node dissection on 35 nodes, and found one suspicious, which, if it turns out malignant would mean adding chemo to the mix.  She reassured me that Kevin was "rock solid". I thanked her, she hugged me and back we went.

All was uneventful for the next few hours until I was paged to surgical reception, but they didn't know why, until a crabby faced woman materialized, and in a serious tone suggested I get whoever was there with me, and she would take us to a private room.  Once again, Patty and I waited. I started feeling as tho I was nor Patty away from meltdown.  This time, Dr. El Kashlan came in with a huge smile, very happy that the auditory nerve was clean, and explained that he did have to clean out tumor from the mandible, which was why Kevin would be receiving radiology.  He said he had a bit more to do, and then Dr. Kim would come in to remove nerve, fat and tissue from his forearm, and reconstruct his facial nerve and fill in his face with fat and tissue and create a flap over all, and her part would take 4 to 6 hours.  He projected her end time to be 5:15.  

Just when we thought the end was near...the pages started coming.  

Dr. Kim thinks she will finish at 7:15...
Dr. Kim thinks she will finish by 9:15...
And when we got to, Dr. Kim thinks she will be finished by 12:15 (am)...I started to lose it, in spite of the fact that the O.R. Nurse and the O.R. Tech were reassuring me that Kevin was fine and holding steady