Post-Op

Tyson's surgery is over! Yahoo! We got to the hospital at 11:30 this morning and got checked in. Tyson's mom, dad and brother were here. They drew his blood to check his PTH and calcium levels again. Then we waited and waited and they finally took him back to the "holding area" around 2:00. I was the only one that got to go back with him. They put in his IV and talked to him about the surgery. Since Tyson mixes the IV's in the pharmacy he had made his own antibiotic that morning at work. So that's kinda funny. At 2:30 I had to leave and they took him back. He was in surgery for about an hour and a half before Dr. Riddle came out. He only talked to us for about two minutes before leaving, but he said that it went well. They only had to take out one of the four parathyroid glands which is very good news, however, it was the last gland that they looked at. They had warned us yesterday that they weren't able to get a clear image on his sestamibi scan, MRI, or ultrasound so they knew they would be searching for the adenoma. So they made a pretty good incision horizontally across his throat. It is 2 or 3 inches long. The Dr. said that as soon as they removed the one gland his PTH dropped from 120 to 33 which is great! After the surgery they kept him in a recovery room for over an hour. We finally got to see him around five when they took him into an observation room. It's really weird because he still hasn't completely come out of the anesthesia. He hasn't said anything very funny. He has pretty much been able to carry on a conversation but he can't open his eyes. He says he's just so exhausted and his throat hurts like he has strep throat. The nurse just brought him some potatoes and gravy (which he requested) but he took one bite and thought he was going to be sick. So he grabbed the lovely blue bag to hold and then he told me he was going to pass out so I went to get the nurse. When I came back his eyes were rolled back in his head which was really freaky but he came back really quick. He's on oxygen because his oxygen level alarm keeps going off but the nurses don't seem too worried. He just took his first dose of pain meds so hopefully he'll be able to rest tonight. They are going to draw his blood and check his calcium levels again at 11 tonight. So I think I'll stick around until then to find out the results. The last time his blood was drawn his calcium was still a little high. The nurse says this is normal. We wanted the PTH to drop rapidly, but the calcium needs to decrease gradually so that the body can adjust. They'll check it at 11 tonight and 5 in the morning. Sorry there's no pictures! I have been taking them but I forgot to bring the cord to put them on my computer! Maybe tomorrow. We'll try to keep everyone posted!