Talked to the Surgeon

I talked to the surgeon (actually his resident), and he said that the surgery went really well. They stapled her intestine back together and did not see any other problems in her abdomen while they were in there. He said that her next surgery will be on Sunday, when they take her in to begin sewing up her belly. He said that they will only sew her up a little at a time and can only begin doing so after she has lost all of the excess fluid that has build up in her body. So, they are currently working on getting all that fluid out. I can already see that those efforts are working, as her face looks more and more like the woman I remember as my wife.

The surgeon said there are a number of ways they can go about closing up her abdomen. They may just stitch her up, but they may sew a velcro-like material to either side of the cut and slowly velcro her together. If they can use stitches, staples, and velcro it seems like a zipper might be handy as well :).

There is still always the possibility for complications (eg., abscesses, hernias, other infection, etc.), but she is really doing well. Even since my last post they have taken her off several of the supports she has been on and have lowered others. She will probably "wake up" in the next day or two. It will be interesting to see how she responds to that. The surgeon told me that she has really "turned the corner." He explained that when she first came to the ICU, she was the sickest person in the ICU (That's saying something for a hospital that has the sickest patients in the region!). He also explained that "turning the corner" means that her condition is still serious, but that instead of worrying about whether she will survive through the night or not, they worry about much more routine matters that they treat with regularity here in the ICU. Hallelujah!