March 29, 2016. Today was a busy day. Mom and Dad were up early to get Dad to dialysis, and it was a full work day for me. At 8:15 A.M., I met Mom at the King’s Daughters clinic for her appointment with her PCP, Dr. Poteet. In reviewing Mom’s chest CT scans, the doctor said that a spot was visible on her CT scan and showed that she had some scarring in a few lobes. He thought that she might have a chronic infection (bronchiectasis). He wasn’t sure, but he thought that she might need a bronchoscopy to get an accurate diagnosis.  He referred her to a pulmonologist at Scott & White. Because King’s Daughters and Scott & White could not share files, he told her to go to the King’s Daughters Surgery department and pick up a CD of her CT scans, which worked out well because I also had to pick up a CD of Dad’s CT scans. When I returned to the house, I called Scott & White and made an appointment with Dr. Mike Martin for Dad. Our friend, Sue, had recommended that we use Dr. Martin as a PCP for Dad. The earliest appointment I could get was April 25, almost a month from now.

I spoke with Dana and then Julie at the Scott & White Speech Pathology department about my concerns about Dad’s surgery and the anesthesia. Julie spoke with Dr. Kyla Sherrard and told me that during recovery he’d have to drink some water. If he couldn’t handle it, the issue would be escalated to their department. She added that they would have a dysphagia screener in recovery. I ended my call with them feeling a little bit more prepared. It seemed to me that everyone involved with speech pathology was a rock star. From the person who answered the phone, to Dr. Sherrard, and all of the therapists, they all seemed all in for their patients.

March 30.  Not so busy as yesterday. After Dad woke from his afternoon nap, Mom drove him to the barber for a haircut. This barber had been in business for many years and knew most of the movers and shakers in Temple. Temple had more movers and shakers than one might think. Drayton McLane, the former owner of the Houston Astros, lives there. Probably more so than in a salon, gossip and stories were shared in the barber shop. Since Dad’s return home, Dad had shared some stories of his journey and news about his upcoming surgery. While Dad was there, his barber gave him the name of his surgeon.

A few days ago, Dad and I had created a recipe for ham loaf, and tonight we prepared it for dinner. Dad also wanted carrots for dinner, and I found an interesting recipe in Mom’s cookbook. My parents had had a good friend who used to serve us ham loaf every time we ate at her house. Mom had never prepared it, and Dad and I were anxious to see if we had created a dish that she would like. Dad and I liked it, but it was a bit high in sodium, which wasn’t good for Dad. We decided, and Mom agreed, that it would be a good use for leftover ham.

March 31. Dad had an uneventful start to the day.

During my one-on-one meeting with my manager, she told me that she was contemplating taking a position with a different business unit in the company. I hated the thought of her leaving. We had a good working relationship, and I considered her to be a friend.

It was a beautiful afternoon. Mom and Dad took a walk out to the garden and then sat on the patio. I fixed our drinks, and we had our happy hour outside until 5:30 P.M. We finished watching the news before Mom and I started to fix dinner. Because we got a late start on dinner, we opted for a simple meal, like leftover meatballs and baked beans.

We played cards after dinner. Mom and Dad went to bed early so that they would be well rested for Dad’s fistula surgery tomorrow. When I went to the office to shut down my computer, I became distracted with work and didn’t get around to calling Stan until after 9:00 P.M. This time might not seem late, but whenever I deviated from my schedule—calling later or earlier—my husband was concerned that something was wrong. Living on pins and needles had become our new normal.

April 1. I was part of the decision-making process to choose this date, but now that it was here, it seemed that April Fool’s day wasn’t a good day for surgery.  I was up at my regular time and ate breakfast at 4:00 A.M., about 30 minutes before Mom and Dad woke up. Mom ate a small breakfast, but because he would be having surgery in a couple of hours, my father was NPO.

We left home for the hospital at 5:30 A.M. in a drizzly lightning storm. We arrived at the Day Surgery waiting room and admissions area a couple of minutes after 6:00 A.M., just beating the morning rush at the check-in desk. Dad was admitted, and we were on our way upstairs to Day Surgery before 6:30 A.M. The nurses and anesthesiologist were great, and they took time to listen to my concerns about Dad’s history of dysphagia and aspiration. I wondered how many people I pestered in my quest to ensure that Dad came through this surgery without any post-op challenges or relapses.

When the nurse wheeled Dad to surgery at 7:30 A.M., Mom and I returned to the waiting room. As usual, the waiting room was unbearably cold. While we waited, I took a few walks around the hospital. It’s a big place, and as much as I hated being here, I was in an environment that had become familiar.

When we arrived in the waiting room, the scheduled time of Dad’s surgery was 2:55 hours, and that time turned out to be accurate. Dr. Wiggins, Dr. Jaffers’s resident, called a couple of times during Dad’s surgery to let us know that everything was proceeding well. When the surgery was over, Dr. Jaffers met with us in a consultation room and told us that the surgery had gone well and gave us some instructions for Dad’s post-op care. As he left, the doctor told us that Dad would be in recovery for about 90 minutes. Mom and I decided to use that time to go home so that we could change into some warmer clothes and eat a hot lunch.

As we pulled out of the driveway to return to the hospital, I received a call on my mobile phone that Dad was out of recovery and waiting for us in Bay 33. When we arrived, his nurse, Danielle, was giving him pudding and water. His dressing seemed pretty bloody. Danielle said that she had changed it once, but she thought that the bleeding had now stopped. She didn’t seem inclined to change it again, and for reasons that I’ll never understand, I didn’t ask her to change it. While we waited for the transportation personnel to take Dad downstairs, Mom helped Dad change out of his hospital gown and into his street clothes. After we arrived home at 2:00 P.M., Dad ate some Cream of Wheat, and then took a nap. I was relieved that he seemed to have come through the surgery unscathed and that my concerns had been unfounded.

Mom ran some errands, and I logged on to work while Dad napped. I woke him at 4:15 P.M. when Mom arrived home from shopping. As soon as he sat up, it was evident that his bleeding had not stopped. I was alarmed when I noticed that his shirt was soaked in blood and that the bedspread held a pool of blood. I cursed myself for not insisting that Danielle change Dad’s dressing so that we could have been certain that the bleeding had stopped before we left the hospital. I started calling numbers on his discharge papers until a human answered the phone. Wanda told me that I should call a different number, but I told her that she had been the only person who had answered the phone, and hers was the last phone number on my list. I took a deep breath as she told me that bleeding from the fistula was a serious problem and that the bleeding had to be stopped. While she put me on hold, she started working the problem and then told me to bring Dad to the emergency department. She would call Dr. Jaffers and have his resident meet us there. Fortunately, Dr. Jaffers was still at the hospital performing similar surgery.

Before we left the house, Wanda called me and said that we should bring Dad directly to the Day Surgery department on the second floor. When we arrived, the nurses couldn’t understand why we were there and told us to go to the waiting room on the first floor. As we entered the waiting room, we saw a familiar face. Sheila, who had been our contact at Interim Health Care (the hospice company that we chose for Dad), was waiting for her nephew to get out of surgery. She was one of the nicest people that you’d ever want to meet, and she commented on how glad she was to see Dad’s continued progress, which was a far cry from hospice.

After we were directed back upstairs to the Day Surgery department, Dr. Wiggins checked Dad’s incision site and applied a new dressing. She said that Dr. Jaffers wanted her to look for any signs of hematoma to determine if they needed to take Dad back into surgery. At this time, the bleeding had slowed, but not stopped, and Dr. Wiggins had Dad sign another surgery consent form in case more surgery was required. She tightened the dressing to apply pressure for about 40 minutes and then removed the pressure for 30 minutes to see if the bleeding would start again. I was concerned about Dad having to return to surgery because he had eaten just a few hours earlier. Fortunately, I guess, Dad vomited some of his lunch during our hour of waiting. The vomiting might have been caused by the anesthesia and was the only time that he was sick today. When Dr. Jaffers returned to the waiting room, he examined Dad’s incision decided that additional surgery wasn’t necessary.

As I pulled the car into the driveway, a chime from my iPhone alerted me to an incoming text message. The text message from Stan informed me that he was in Cameron, about 30 miles from my parents’ home. He walked into the house while Mom and I were unwinding with a late happy hour. We served more of the ham loaf for dinner and finally got to bed at 11:00 P.M. For my peace of mind, I put the monitor back in my parents’ bedroom for this one night. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I spent the night worrying about Dad.

This had been another danged long day of health care, and I hoped that Dad’s days of surgery were over.