Nml's Posts

Day 6 post-op (husband) Today started with the usual pre-dawn chest x-ray followed shortly thereafter by our local tornado sirens and a knock on the door from the nurse. The room was still dark-ish but she told us the power had gone out and now we were on the generator. Just then a presumed tornado was seen on the radar in Dallas, so an official NWS warning was triggered. With sirens wailing all over town, the staff rolled everyone's bed or recliner out to the hallway to get away from glass. And there we stayed for close to an hour. It was a little surreal. We returned to the room and of course no one came by on the usual early morning rounds. The power outage lasted about four hours. Then the docs and PAs started popping in, better late than never. They said that Bill could probably go home tomorrow. They all agree that, aside from some extra fluid/swelling that has waxed and waned, he looks pretty good, the heart looks good, and the wound looks good. They did x-ray his gut to check on some areas that looked like stuff wasn't moving through as if should (have not heard anything about that yet) and also did a scan of his swollen legs to make sure there were no blood clots (none seen). So you're thinking, great, one week total and goodbye, even with the delay of the subcutaneous emphysema (almost gone now), The only problem with this scenario: like 600,000 other households in the area, we have no power at home. The doc intimated that Bill won't be kicked out if we have no power. Based on previous freak severe storm outages this widespread, it will be days—possibly into next week—before everyone is restored. On a positive note, the plywood over the broken window withstood today's storm (although parts of the fence did not). So here's hoping for some pleasant surprises tomorrow…