Surgery Day and Recovery

            Here are a couple of pictures getting ready for Surgery. It is now March of 2015 and we are going through with the very tough decision of surgery. Melissa had to get prepped the day before. She wasn’t able to eat after 12 PM and was only able to drink clear liquids after that. She still has been on the steroids and they make her very hungry so not being able to eat was not ideal for her. We get a good laugh when she is on steroids and how much she eats because she normally doesn’t eat very much!

            We had to be up and at the hospital by 6 AM, we don’t do early mornings. Needless to say we slept through the alarm and were lucky enough to have Melissa’s mom call us just in time for us to get up and make it to the hospital. We took a couple of pictures while waiting to be taken down to the surgery. As you can see in the picture on the right she was marked by the stoma nurse and that black little dot is where one of the incisions will be made and the small intestine will be connected to her abdomen. This is also where the bag will be connected while she heals, and until it is then reconnected back down to the j-pouch. As you can see she is trying to be as brave as possible. She is very nervous about waking up to the bag and how she is going to feel about it.  We find comfort in being able to tell her that it is not a permanent situation. As they got ready to take her down to surgery, Melissa was telling me about this older women who had been doing her remicade infusions at the hospital. When Melissa was getting the infusions it would take a few hours and she became very good friends with this hilarious, sweet older lady. She was talking with me telling me how she was supposed to tell Pat that she was getting surgery, but she forgot. Sure enough a couple minutes later, Pat walked in. She said "I had to come in when I saw that my friend was here". She was working early in the morning and was able to be Melissa’s nurse. We laughed thinking about how we were just talking about her, but also found comfort knowing that the lord must have been sending her as support for Melissa, because it made her feel a little more comfortable.

           We were talking to the doctor and anesthesiologist and Melissa started to get a little bit more nervous and emotional. I was able to talk with her, and ensure her that she was going to do great. Also remind her that she was going to be so much happier after this was over with and she had recovered. The anesthesiologist gave her a little bit of the medicine and she started getting a little loopy and giggly, it was nice to see her smile right before I had to leave.  Melissa made sure that I asked the doctor that she could see her colon after it was removed. He said they normally don’t do that but he would be sure to take a picture when it was out. I have been sitting in the waiting room writing this blog and this is where we are at. She has been in surgery for about 2-3 hours now and I just received an update that the colon was removed and that she is doing awesome. I will be sure to update this after she is done and a little bit of her recovery. We are excited to have our sweet, energetic Melissa back. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. We wouldn’t be able to do it without the support and love from family and friends. 

**Update**
She just finished with surgery and will be in recovery for the next hour. The doctor said that everything went awesome. He explained that they make about 3 small incisions. 1 to connect the intestine to and the other couple for drainage. In some situations they have to make a bigger incision (about the size of a hand) but he said that wasn't necessary. Melissa was very concerned about scars and her stomach. She had me take this picture this morning to make sure she had a picture of her stomach before it was scarred. 

Melissa had the chance to call and talk with a lady who had the same surgery done by the same doctor. Melissa brought up the fear of having scars on her stomach. The lady told Melissa that before he did these types of surgery he did plastic surgery reversals so he was very good at keeping scars to a minimum. She was pretty happy about that. He showed me the pictures of the colon and said it was very inflamed so it's a good thing we had it removed. If we get the pictures we will have to post them. He said she will be sore but should try to get up and walk today to help the process.