Surgery

First of all: thanks for all the support, thoughts, candles, etc. I'd love to thank you all personally, but I can't work up the energy right now. Sorry...

This morning around 11am I got a call from the hospital. Much too early (the surgery would last 4 to 6 hours), so I knew something was wrong. It was the surgeon himself. He told me my mother was brought to the ICU. My first thought was: thank god, she's not dead! The surgery started as planned, but didn't continue the way it should have. When the chest was open the surgeon discovered that the aorta was very severely hardened (calcificated). They knew about the hardening itself, but the seriousness would be unknown until the surgery. It was much worse than they anticipated. Technically it was difficult but possible to do a bypass and the valve replacement, but for my mum that wasn't an option. The risks would be unacceptable, sky high. She wouldn't have survived the operation... The surgeon consulted his colleagues, but they were unanimous. The only wise thing to do was stop the surgery and close her chest again, so that's what they did...

I was devastated, but after some phone calls I screwed up my courage and left for Amsterdam. I wanted to be with her, although it would take more time for her to notice me. After all she had gotten anaesthetics for lengthy open heart surgery. Around 3pm she opened her eyes now and then, saw me, smiled and slept on. After a few hours the artificial respiration was going to be turned off. A tense moment, but fortunately her lungs took over and she was breathing on her own. A ray of hope in sad times...

She was awake and talked a bit, but the surgeon considered her not yet conscious enough to tell the bad news. He'll do that tomorrow morning when I'm there. I can call the nurse around 8am to arrange it. I dread the moment, but I want to be with her when she hears about it. I'm afraid it'll hit her hard...

Please keep thinking of her, burning candles, etc.