22 July 2010 - QE Hospital (Morning)

As I write this -2:15pm on Thursday 22 August - Deb is still in theatre. I have just rung the Critical Care Unit to see if she was back from surgery and was told no and to ring back in a couple of hours. I need something to do to fill the time.

I arrived at the hospital at about 08:15 this morning. During the night she had seen the SHO (I guy called Lawrence who went to school with Adam Darcy. I don't know what's worse the fact that he is the same age as our son or that he is a friend of Adam's). He arranged for the cross matching of blood. In the morning, before I arrived Deb had seen the Registrar and had signed another consent form. On the form under the heading 'Name of Procedure' it said 'brain lab guided craniectomy and debaulking of SOL (?) + insertion of gliadel wafers'. He had told Deb that they hope to remove about 90% of the tumour. Under the heading 'Risks' the form said 'infection, hemorrhage, stroke, wound breakdown, CSF leak, failure of insertion of gliadel wafers.'

Deb had been given a dose of 4mg of steroids (dexamethazone; her previous dose was 0.4mg) and given 4 anti-epileptic tablets. While I was there the anaesthetist for the operation arrived. She seemed thorough and was concerned that Deb was taking beta blockers to prevent heart palpitations. She said they would have to contact Good Hope Hospital to establish what the heart problem was before they could operate. She also said: 1) Deb will go into the Critical Care Unit after the operation. 2) Deb will have a catheter inserted so she would not have to get up for the toilet after the operation. 3)They would put a special line into her arm to continuously measure her blood pressure (there can be severe swings of blood pressure during brain surgery) 4) They would probably put a line into the jugular vein in her neck to monitor blood fluids. 5) That when Deb wakes up she will feel serious pressure pain in her head (for this they will give her morphine) and 'moderate' pain from the skull wound.

We also met a nurse who introduced herself as the first person Deb would see when see came round. Deb had another ECG (we guess this was because they had not been able to get any sense out of Good Hope and they just wanted to check before starting the operation). At about 10:10 they took her into theatre. I kissed her and said I would see her later and watched as she was pushed through double doors with a notice saying 'no public admittance past this point'.

Will write more later.