It has been a long day, but a very good day. We had to be at Mayo at 6:00am today to check in for the surgery. Dr. Robertson came in a few minutes before 7:30am and went over the last few things and then they had Julie back in the operating room shortly afterwards. I received a notice from the desk that the actual surgery began at 8:25am. Dr. Robertson had scheduled the OR for 8 hours, but before the surgery he said he thought it would take around 4 hours. Around 11:25am the team called out to the desk to notify me that the surgery was going well and it would be about another hour, so I quickly went down to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat. Around 1:30pm, Dr. Robertson had completed the surgery and came out to talk with me while his team was completing the clean up, etc. I don’t remember all of the details, but there were three basic criteria that he was looking for to be able to reconnect the colon and he said all three of them were better than good (almost perfect). While he was inside of her he was also looking for any signs of potential cancer and said he did not find any. He did take a few random biopsies, but he said nothing looked like it could be cancer. He did have a little scar tissue to cut away, but even that was better than he expected. He said she did really good and we really couldn’t ask for a better scenario for this surgery. At 3:40pm, they were moving Julie from recovery to a regular room (woo hoo — no ICU required this time) and we could go up to see her around 4pm. When we walked in at 4pm she was eating jello and looked great. Their goal is to start her on solid foods tonight and to have her up walking tonight as well. We are expected to be in the hospital for 4 to 7 days. As I write this she is on the self-administered push-button pain meds and is getting good rest.
Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers throughout this whole journey. God has been amazing in the way He has worked and we are so grateful. Your prayers, notes of encouragement, visits, etc. have been amazing as well.
To the Glory of God!
Ben