Sometimes I have to remind myself (forcefully) that God is in charge of everything. Take yesterday, for instance. We got to the hospital at 10AM sharp. Evan’s surgery was scheduled for noon. There had been a thunderstorm early in the morning and the power had been out for a couple of hours. When we got Evan checked in, we asked if that would put his surgery behind. They told us it would be about an hour behind, which wasn’t bad.
1PM came and went. The nurse tells us that the power outage had damaged some of their electrical equipment in a couple of the operating rooms so it looked like surgery would be around 3PM. We wrestled with Evan, trying to get an IV in him, always difficult because he has hard to find veins. They finally got one in but it quit working after half an hour. Out that one came. Before trying to go through the process again, they gave him some Valium to try to calm him. It made him sleepy but when it was time to try to get another IV in, his adrenaline overcame the Valium and he was in fighting shape. Finally a good IV was inserted.
Now the surgeon’s nurse comes in. Evan has been bumped to the bottom of the list because his surgery is elective. Do we want to wait or cancel? We decide to wait as we have already spent one night in a hotel and have it booked for another night. The nurse says it might be 6PM or later. We say that’s ok, we just need to get this surgery done. It’s already been postponed twice. Harold & I take turns going back to the hotel to rest as it looks like it will be a long night. Evan dozes and watches cartoons. A saline drip keeps him hydrated and he doesn’t ever ask for anything to eat or drink. Some of the surgery staff wants us to cancel. A nurse named Linda advocates for us saying, “This family and patient have been put through a lot today. We owe it to them to do the procedure.”
It’s nearly 5:30PM. Our surgeon, his resident and surgical nurse have been in Jeff City since noon waiting for an OR to open up. The surgeon comes in and tells us the orthopedic crew he uses at that hospital has gone home. He could use another crew but the equipment they will be using on Evan is brand new and that crew would not be familiar with it. He feels uncomfortable using an inexperienced crew. The surgery is cancelled. He is tremendously apologetic. Evan is tremendously happy. I try not to burst into tears of frustration. We are offered a new date of next Wednesday. Too tired & emotionally spent to even think of doing this again in a few days, we decline and decide to reschedule for October, after school has started and things settle down a bit.
Harold calls the hotel to see if we can cancel the room. We just want to go home and sleep. The person at the front desk says they will have to charge us anyway. Who cares? We decide to leave and make the 2 ½ hour drive home. Getting to the hotel, we pack in about 5 minutes, lugging food & clothes we had just unpacked the night before back out to the car. Harold goes to the front desk where the clerk feels bad and just charges us for Thursday night. We are grateful and head for home, stopping at McDonald’s to feed our son who hasn’t eaten since the night before.
My mom tells me that it must not have been God’s will for the surgery to happen that day. This is what the surgeon has said also. So I remind myself that is true, even if I can’t see the big picture at the moment.
So today we have turned the phones off, slept late, and are going to watch a movie and try to get back into a routine that we haven’t had all summer. School starts Monday and Evan is so over-the-moon happy to be able to be there for the first day of his senior year. He is already planning what to wear and what he will pack for lunch. As always, he is more resilient than Harold or I.
