George's second surgery

Buffalo Ridge Camp Resort
Custer, SD

We've worked 7 days straight since my last post.

The campground is getting full

with lots of tourists visiting Custer.

Our days were scheduled so that we

could be off to coincide with George's surgery.

Yesterday we got to Rapid City Regional Hospital

at 8 am for George's scheduled surgery at 9:30.

He had the pre-op blood drawn,

got checked in at admissions,

then sent to the pre-op area.

They gave him a lovely purple gown,

and got his IV's all set up.

Then a few nurses came in,

the anesthesiologist,

and finally the surgeon.

He explained how it all would go down.

One thing he told us was that he would be using

the DaVinci Robot to assist in the surgery.

(Picture from the internet)

For some reason they wouldn't let me in to watch! :-)

 The surgery highway was backed up,

so we waited in pre-op until 11 am,

when they finally took George to surgery.

They sent me to the waiting room,

where they have a cool computer monitor.

The volunteer checks you into the waiting room,

gives you a special code number that

is for the patient.

You can then follow the progress on the screen.

It shows where the patient is at any given time,

from pre-op,

to OR, 

to when the procedure actually starts,

to recovery.

I also got a call every hour from the assistant

telling me how George was doing.

Love this hospital!

Finally around 3 pm,

they called and told me George was in recovery,

and in about an hour they would let me know

what room he was going to be in.

The surgeon, Dr. Miller, came down

and told me that everything went fantastic!

He actually removed about 9" of his Sigmoid Colon.

The cut was clean, no issues or abscesses found.

He stitched him back together,

and said the healing should go well.

We were thankful to God that no colostomy bag was needed.

George has 5 small incisions is all!

He was very groggy,

so I stuck around for an hour or so,

then came back home to get some sleep!

I talked to him today,

and he's already eating some soft foods

and is feeling great.

They didn't need a catheter post surgery,

so he's  quite happy about that :-)

He's hoping to get released on Sunday or Monday,

but we'll see how that goes.

I'm going to take a ride over with Marlene

today to help her shop for the campground,

so we'll stop in and see how he's doing!