The Surgery

This post will walk you through the surgery from my (Josh’s) point of view. Candi will do a guest blog entry later to share her perspective regarding the surgery and hospital recovery.

I must start by saying that I received the most wonderful gift from my friends at the News & Messenger & Culpeper Star Exponent Monday night. When I arrived at the hotel, Susan (Executive Editor) was there with a gift bag with a Kindle! There were also gift cards and puzzle books – great hospital items! Thank you SOOOOOO much to all of these friends for the wonderful gifts. I even got a little teary eyed while reading all of your messages on the card!

Arriving at the hospital at 6 AM Tuesday morning, I checked in at the surgery center and filled out some paperwork. A short while later, I was called back to pre-op. I had to strip down to nothing but a hospital gown (and some cool non-slip socks) and hop up on the hospital bed they would use for the surgery. We talked with a lot of the surgery team members from doctors, to nurses, to the anesthesiologist. Just after 8 AM, I said my goodbyes (you could have one visitor with you in pre-op) and was wheeled back to the surgery room to begin anesthesia. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much between this point and when I woke up in my hospital room, but here are some of the pieces that I do know.

My surgery was performed by the surgeon I met with at the 30-day blood work. This was a good thing as I really liked him and was confident in his skill level. They did end up doing the surgery laproscopically and took out my left kidney. One conversation with the surgeon seemed to indicate that they ran into some issues taking it out. Apparently, they had to cut through more blood vessels than they anticipated which may explain why my incisions were more tender after the surgery than expected. Beyond that, the surgery seemed to go quite well from my standpoint. My incisions haven’t bled since the surgery and are no longer as tender. The surgeon has commented that they are coming along quite well.

Here are a couple pictures of the incisions.  Click on the pictures for larger versions.  I'll post some updated versions a few weeks from now to show how the healing is going.