Lung Biopsy - Day One

With the new revelations in Ryan's health, the doctors decided the best course of action was for Ryan to have both a bronchoscopy and an open lung biopsy. Our scheduled date was August 12th, and since two doctors had arranged to perform his procedures, we were the first appointment of the day. The nice thing about having two doctors perform procedures at the same time is that there is very little chance that you get bumped as they are working with their schedules.

We were asked to be at the hospital at 6:30am. That means we had to leave our house at 5:30am. Sydney stayed the night at her friend's house. She was thrilled at that because we do not allow sleep-overs at our house so the thought of being able to be with a friend was thrilling to her.

We woke up at 4:45am so Brett and I could eat breakfast and Ryan could have one last drink before being without food or drink for the surgery. We made it out of the house just a bit later than 5:30. I hate being late, but it turned out that it didn't really matter as there were probably 10-ish other patients in the waiting room when we arrived shortly after 6:30.

I tell you, there is fun to be had in the surgical waiting room. :)

If I ever design a children's hospital, I'm going to make sure there are clothes of all sizes. Ryan is a skinny little thing, although he's not a toddler anymore, and he's not the size of an adult. It seems that every surgery he's ever had he either had to wear toddler-sized clothing that fit in the waist, but were capris, or adult-sized clothing. This time they gave him the adult-sized clothing. I think I could have probably climbed in the pants with him.

Once we were called back to speak with the anesthesiologist, Ryan was given a warm blanket from the blanket heater (in the background....I need one of those at my house), and he was able to play a video game.

I have to say I was very pleased with the anesthesiologist. He was very personable, and spoke to Ryan as if he was the most important person there. I appreciate that.

The surgery lasted just over an hour. We were pleasantly surprised when the surgeon, and the pulmonologist came in so soon. We were equally pleased when they told us that Ryan was doing SO well that he did not need the PICU. I for one was very grateful for that.

I am usually the one that sees Ryan straight after surgery. A lot of that is because I am the one that takes him most of the time to the Dr because Brett is working. This time though we decided, or rather I decided, that Brett needed to be the first one to go back and I would go when I was allowed. We waited almost exactly 40 minutes from the time the docs came in until they called for Brett.

Once he went back I went back to my seat and waited for my turn. There was a lady there asking all kinds of questions about why we were there. I suppose it is natural to be curious, but I did not like the curiosity one bit.

Probably about 15 minutes or so after Brett went back the phone rang in the waiting room. The conversation ensued something like this:

"Surgery waiting room this is Kathy."
Pause
"Great, well, send dad back and we'll go ahead and send mom in."
Pause
"Oooohhhh. Ok then, we'll go ahead and send mom in."
Click
"Will the mom of Ryan Berger please come to the desk, we are ready to take you back."

I walked back to the waiting room to see this....

and this

I then received the low down on both patients. Brett had passed out and when he came to, he had thrown up. The nurses also said that he had a seizure and they had paged a doctor, or asked for a doctor to come in and assess Brett. They wanted to make sure that we didn't need to take him to the ER. Thankfully the closest doctor did not think Brett would need an ER visit. His convulsions were the result of the low blood pressure when he passed out. What a relief.

I of course did what any good wife would do - I laughed. Poor Brett. 

Little Ryan was laying there hoping for more pain meds. His chest tube was causing some pretty excruciating pain. He could not get any other meds until we could make it to his room. I was ready to get him to his room, but we had to figure out what to do with Brett. Our room was not big enough for two beds so they wanted to put Brett in a wheel chair. 

They brought the wheel chair in and put Brett in it. The movement caused him to throw up again. The nurse kind of freaked out a bit and they took his blood pressure again. It was within normal range so we took Brett away in the chair. I can't remember how many more times he puked -- maybe two? At any rate, he felt terrible for most of the day and he and Ryan slept the day away. 

By night time the new nurse was insistent that Ryan walk to her desk. I didn't think that would happen, but we had to get him up and at least try. We helped him to the rest room, and he barely made it around the bed before he began to dry heave. There would be no walking to any desk tonight.

I left Brett and Ryan for the evening. I was able to go to the Ronald McDonald House that was just a couple miles away. We were unsure if Ryan would be home the following day so we decided that it was most important that I get a good night's rest as I would likely be the one that didn't sleep the following night if we were in the hospital.