John Update: 1 of 2

John's surgery went amazingly well this morning!  Thank you to everyone who said a prayer or kept us in their thoughts.  :)

Neither of us slept well last night and we were both up around 4:30 this morning without the help of an alarm.  We got ready and headed to the hospital at 5:30.  Got him checked in and waited to be called back to pre-op.  They called him back right around 7 ... we did most of our waiting back in pre-op, actually.  After they got everything hooked up, I headed back out to the waiting room while they wheeled him off to the OR.  The really cool thing about Reston Hospital Center is the monitors they have in the surgical waiting room that updates you on the patients' status.  I've never been in a hospital that has this, so it was a nice to have that to rely on throughout the day.

Around 10, John's doctor finally came out to update me that his surgery had gone well, and that he was still sleeping and about to be moved to recovery.  After 2.5 more hours of waiting for a nurse to come get me, I finally asked the volunteer they had there and as it turned out he had been sent to the "secondary recovery" (aka, pre-op).  They were out of rooms at the moment in the hospital, so he had to wait there for one to open up.  I was finally able to go back to see him, and oh my goodness ... he looked amazing, sounded amazing and was just ... amazing!  lol  You could barely tell that anything had happened to him.  He's such a trooper!  I spent the next couple of hours reading while he dozed or talking to him when he was awake.  It was really nice to just spend that type of quality time together with no interruptions (i.e., the kids, lol).  It sucks it had to come under those circumstances, but I really enjoyed the alone time we spent this afternoon waiting for a room to open up.

Once he got settled in a room, I went home to see the kids.  By this time it was almost 4 in the afternoon and I hadn't seen them at all yet.  They seemed to be a bit out of sorts, or maybe it was just me since we weren't together all day we seemed to be a bit out of sync, so tonight was a little rough, but I have faith the rest of the week won't be as difficult.  We went to dinner with my parents and then I took the kids up to the hospital to see John (at his request, he missed them today!).  We didn't stay long because Henry was in to everything and Jacob was having a hard time listening, but at least John got to see them and they got to see him.  I can't wait to go back tomorrow morning to spend some more time with him, just have to find some toys that I can take with me to keep Henry occupied (we're going to go after I take Jacob to school).

Now that the day is over and I kept it together for everyone, though, I find myself falling apart.  :(  I miss my husband.  The house seems so empty without him here.  I hate that he's in pain, but I know it's just temporary.  This is ALL just temporary, but it's still hard nonetheless.