11/09/2008 - Third Surgery

When Michael and I arrived today, I felt his head, and he seemed a little warm. I must be mistaken, but wasn't. He had a fever of about 100 degrees. Where, why??? There are hand sanitizers all around, and people are very good about washing their hands. Did we bring it in?? We'll never know.

The nurse told me they cultured his blood (I never did find the results), and because he was hooked to so many tubes, they decided to change them all, which was a major operation, instead of taking a chance. They told us that sometimes infection sets in through the tubes.

Unbeknownst to me, Dr. Blau had scheduled a surgical dressing change. He came into the room while they were changing the tubes, and was clearly mad at the staff about something, although we couldn't tell exactly what, since we kept being thrown out of the room. He wasn't happy about the fever at all.

Bad, bad vibes for surgery. We stood by as Terumi was wheeled past us into OR about 7 pm, and yelled, "Oto-chama, GAMBATTE!!!"

I went back into SICU to talk to the nurse. She had disappeared and there was a very young resident there talking to someone on the phone. It turned out to be Dr. Blau. They had forgotten to give me a consent to sign. Dr. Blau came roaring back. I signed, although I could barely write my name. He spoke to us calmly to tell us he was going to change the dressing and check the wound. Nevertheless, bad vibes were all around. We could barely speak, and so until Dr. Blau came back to the waiting room, we mindlessly sat there, each in a different world.

Dr. Blau said he cultured various parts of Terumi's abdomen, and there was no sign of infection; the wound was clean. He also said that Terumi would have a hernia after this was all over, but they would take care of it later -- maybe in about a year.

Michael and I went in to see him asleep again. They were going to leave him asleep until the morning. Clearly, Michael didn't really want to leave, but we went home very late -- or very early, depending on how you look at it. I told him that Terumi is very strong, still, and this would not be the last time he would see him. Michael managed to get a few hours of sleep.