As mentioned in an earlier Blog, Halina was scheduled for her surgery on the morning of April 1st, 2020 at the Kelowna General Hospital. Due to Covid-19 restrictions I was not able to stay in the hospital and wait for her to in recovery, instead I was told to go home and that the surgeon would call me once she was out and explain how everything went.
By my estimation I felt that by 4 or 5 in the afternoon I should be receiving a call but nothing came until about 9:30 pm. Trust me I was calling the hospital every hour after 5 pm but was relieved when I did get the call and was told she was recovering and all had gone well. I emphasized I really needed to come and see her but unfortunately there wasn’t anything to be done but he said he would work on trying to get me in.
The next morning I called the ICU nurse to find out how Halina was doing and mentioned that she did have her phone with her and thought if she had it nearby she could maybe text me. A few hours later I received a messenger video call and got to see her for the first time since the surgery.
At this point I did all the talking with Halina and she was only able to move her head very slightly from side to side or up and down. Let me tell you it was a relief to be able to see her. These video calls were maybe once a day and only for about 5 to 10 minutes as the medication was making her very tired but that didn’t stop me from calling the ICU nurse 3 or 4 times a day to get up dates.
Halina was in ICU for 5 days and then was transferred to the 3 East ward of the hospital. At this point I was able to speak with a nurse that said Dr. Hearn suggested I be allowed to visit and within 2 days I got myself a special wrist band and was able to see her face to face.
That day I got a close up of the surgery results and although we had been told that they were going to remove some tissue from her leg in order to fill the void in her mouth I was not prepared for just how big the donor site was, below is a picture of just the top of her leg, there is a graph site the same size just on the side of her leg,
I watched as the nurse would remove the bandages and clean the site as this was going to be us doing this once Halina was out of the hospital.
The next picture was of the incision to the neck area which was stapled together,
The staples came out about 2 weeks or so after the surgery but were taken out over a period a a few days. The first day they removed every 3rd staple then more the next until finally all were out.
Halina spent a total of 25 days in the hospital and during that time had to work on putting weight on her leg enough so that she could walk on her own with a walker and be able to climb 9 stairs. During her time in the hospital Halina did not leave the ward so it was almost a month since she had been outside, That day we left the hospital was such an awesome feeling, knowing she was going home and we could spend time in our house at our own pace during the next year of her recovery but the ride home didn’t come with its share of small adventure. But this is a story for another Blog!