So I am sitting here at Stanford Hospital, with time to blow, waiting for my son (Ryan) to come out of his second shoulder surgery, in 2 days. Long story. As some might know my son is Epileptic. It started right before his 21st birthday. Put him and us thru hell for a number of years. He had brain surgery at Stanford and has been Grand Mal Seizure free for over 2 years. He is now trying to get his life back on track and is going to Monterey Peninsula College, majoring in Psychology. All of those seizures caused his right shoulder to dislocate during the seizures. It got so bad he started dislocating his shoulder randomly as much as twice a day. Several months after his brain surgery he had shoulder surgery to fix the dislocations. It worked but at a cost. He had constant and severe pain and arthritis. Also he had limitations to his shoulder use. About 6 months ago it got so painful he had to do something. He was referred to Stanford. The same hospital that did his brain surgery. His first shoulder surgery was not done here. Long story short they did Hemicap shoulder surgery yesterday and I picked him up bright and early this morning and took him back home. We got a call today..... they said looking at his Xrays there was an issue and they needed for him to come back up for another operation to fix it. YIKES. At home and on the nearly 2 hour trip back up here he was in extreme pain. Enough to make a 29 year old man cry. When we got here they saw how bad he was and rushed him in. To alleviate is pain they gave him two pretty much back to back doses of pain meds in a pain pump that he is attached to. So he hadn't eaten since last night. He hasn't had anything to drink all day. They told him not to because of the planned second operation. He was in extreme...and I mean extreme pain...and was stressed out about another operation and the pain he was in. You guessed it, he had a Grand Mal in the operation prep room. Instantaneously there were 7 nurses by my side helping him. It was a good thing I was there. They were throwing out questions at me left and right about him. He made it thru it like he has all the others. Thing is he hasn't had one in 26 months. For me it was the sudden push of high dose pain medicatiin...along with stress, hunger, thirst and pain that caused the seizure. It's a one off. 45 minutes later we were having a pow wow with the surgeon and the head anesthesiologist. Should they operate this evening or wait for a better day. After talking it over all 4 of us voted to proceed with the operation. And now I wait. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep over the last 2 days. I have been making up for that by eating way too much. Sorry for the long story. Needed to type this up to get it out and help me burn some useless time. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
