Kyphoplasty #2

May 19, 2017

Today is Em’s last day of Biology at the High School. She still has 2 weeks of classes before her graduation, but she is happy to be able to sleep later in the mornings for a while. I have the privilege of driving the girls today. They were both giddy about finishing up the class and the credit that they will have waiting for them when they start the next school year.

May 22, 2017

I got a call about Den’s Kyphoplasty that is scheduled for tomorrow. Katie had already given us all the instructions, so this was more like a review for us. Nothing to eat or drink (expect a small sip of water with morning meds), go for blood work before going to registration.

I sent a message to the LVAD Team for an order for Den’s usual blood work to be done tomorrow also. This way Den only needs to get stuck once this week for blood work.

May 23, 2017

Den got up early today and had some breakfast. He knew that he was not allowed anything to eat after 6AM, so I made sure he had a decent breakfast to tide him over until after the procedure. I took Em to school, then headed home to get everything ready for us to head to the U of C.

We arrived in plenty of time and headed directly to the Lab for Den’s blood draw. We know that his INR needs to be below 1.5 in order for the procedure to be done today. So we have our fingers crossed.

We checked in at registration before noon. Den is so ready for this to be done that he is having trouble being patient today. We didn’t have to wait long. Den and I went to pre-op. The nurses are always kind and helpful. When the labs came back we all gave a collective sigh of relief. Den’s INR is 1.1. Houston….all systems are a go! Before they took Den for the procedure, the anesthesiologist came by to talk about how he wanted to handle today’s procedure. He didn’t want to put Den out completely, like last time. He wanted to give Den what is called “Twilight Anesthesia”. This was much less risky and recovery time would be shorter. We talked about it and Den decided to go with his recommendation. The rest of the day went with out a hitch. Meg had come down last night to get Em from school, since Den’s scheduled start time was so late in the day. Den was not singing to everyone this time when I got to see him in post-op. He was very happy to see me and the snacks that I had got for him from the cafeteria. We were on our way home within an hour of his procedure being completed and home in time for dinner. It had been a long day, but so worth it to see Den out of pain again.