It’s over

The surgery was to take 1 to 1.5 hours — it took just over 2.5 hours.  The doctor said it was the worst he’s done in his 20 years of practice — from what he said, I think the thing that made it worst was that Dean’s soft tissues were so tough that the doctor just couldn’t get the metatarsal to move over to where it was supposed to go — so in addition to the osteotomy, he also had to shorten the metatarsal.  This may lead to a complication called a “transfer lesion” but it was just the only thing the doctor could do.  He also said Dean had really bad arthritis in there, which he cleaned up the best he could.  Dean got three titanium screws in his bone.  The doctor was satisfied but not thrilled with the final result (he’s a perfectionist, which I like in a surgeon) but once Dean has healed and has good orthotic insoles, he should have a lot less foot pain.

I forgot to take a “before” picture.  Oh, well.

Anyway he got out of surgery around 4 pm, but still needed to wait for the anesthesia to wear off, and that took a long time — also, it was giving him short-term amnesia, so that, for example, he pointed to a second water cup on his bedstand and said, “That one’s empty,” and when I said, “Yeah, you drank it already,” he said, “No, I didn’t.”  (But I’d seen him do it.)  He also told me that he had that feeling like when you’ve been dreaming on a Saturday morning and you just don’t want to wake up — and then he told me pretty much the same thing ten minutes later.  And again ten minutes later.  This for about two hours.  (I just said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”)

My mom was able to come relieve the babysitter around 5 until I brought Dean home a little before 8.  (In between, I had run home to get some food myself while Dean’s anesthesia was wearing off.)  He’s upstairs resting and he wants to watch a movie after I’ve checked my email and unwound a bit.  (Woah, it’s almost 9:30?  Time flies.)  I’m more exhausted than you would think from my having sat in a waiting room all day, but anxiety is fatiguing.  I’m grateful the surgery’s over with, glad he had a really good surgeon, and on the whole really glad Dean hd the surgery done.  Now I just need to get through the next few days and weeks — I think there’s a lot of fast food/frozen food/take-out in our near future, because I just don’t feel like cooking.

In an odd coincidence, my niece broke her foot a couple days ago — so she and Dean will be able to commiserate — and so will my sister and I.

Anyway, thanks for any of your prayers, and if you want to keep sending them up for a smooth recovery for Dean, we’d love that.

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