Communication is key...

Yesterday, when Alex was in the operating room, I was given a pager (shown below) that buzzed and texted me with updates throughout surgery. It would say things like "patient is now moving to recovery" and "operation has now begun". They also would periodically page me overhead to come to the desk to tell me updates on his status. They had phones in the waiting area (more like the waiting building) that the doctor called me on before they even woke Alex up to tell me what he saw. He called back while Alex was in recovery and gave me an update of what was to come and what several colleagues had to say about it. There was even a huge computer screen that had all the patients initials on it with exact times that they moved from pre-op to the OR to post acute care, recovery, and finally back to their rooms. It looked very similar to the giant airport computers that display arrival/departure times.

It was so nice to know exactly where he was at all times. I was able to go anywhere in the hospital with the pager, which meant I was able to get something to eat while he was waiting for 2 hours to go into surgery. He had to wait so long b/c he drank contrast during his CT scan earlier in the day and had to be NPO for a certain number of hours prior to surgery. Then he was in recovery for about 3 hours as well...so it was a long day!