We're back in New Jersey!

Boy, has it been a tiring week. We are really sorry that there have not been any new updates since Monday. We have been really busy running around and getting things organized in Pittsburgh.

Firstly, we would like to thank all of you for your prayers and concern for Kevin's mother's operation. It went really well and she is now on her way to recovery. She is still in hospital and should be there for another week or so. She started her Psysical Training (PT) day before yesterday and she will have to continue with her PT for another month or so (at least until she is able to move around well enough). There were a few concerns after the operation though, like she wasn't urinating much as the doctor would have liked her to. So, the doctor ordered an ultrasound to be done to her kidneys. Praise the Lord that the results came out normal and she is now doing better. I think maybe she just needed to drink more water. She was on morphine after the operation so the after operation pain was tolerable. They took her off that yesterday and she is now only on regular pain pills. Just continue to pray for a speedy recovery and that her wounds will not hurt that much. It especially hurts when she is undergoing her PT.

Since we didn't have time to update the blog in Pittsburgh, here are some backdated updates, pre and post surgery. She had her surgery done in UPMC Passavant and I must say I'm pretty impressed with that hospital. The staff working there are really friendly, helpful and warm. The hospital is also very clean and nice looking, looks more like a hotel compared to a hospital! We were supposed to check in for surgery at 10:45am on Tuesday morning. We arrived at about 10:30am and we were lead to the surgery check in section on the 2nd floor. They took Kevin's mom to another room to fill up some forms as well as prep her for pre-surgery. Then they gave us Kevin's mom's "Patient Tracking Number" and some sort of a paging device. They said that they will page us once they are done with the prep. They also took down Kevin's cell phone number and told us to go get some breakfast at the cafeteria or we could get some free coffee in the waiting area. They would need at least an hour to prep Kevin's mom. Then we will be allowed to see her again before she is wheeled in for her surgery.

We went down to the coffee house at the lobby of the hospital to have some bagels and tea. Another thing I noticed about this hospital is that the food are really cheap and good! :P This is a picture of the paging device. It's something like those paging device you get from Olive Garden or Red Lobster when you are waiting for a table. The pager works anywhere on the hospital grounds. It's really cool that you don't have just wait in the waiting area while your love ones are undergoing surgery.

After about an hour, we decided to go back to the waiting room to check on Kevin's mom's status. There is a big LCD screen where you can check/track the progress of the patient using the "Patient Tracking Number". It's just like those arrival/departure screens in the airport. You can see where the patient is currently at, be it still in the waiting room or if the surgery is in progress or if they are already in the recovery room or back in the ward. Kevin's mom was still in the prep room so we just watched some TV and waited. There is also free WIFI in the waiting room. Too bad we didn't bring our laptops. The pager went off soon after and they brought us to a room to see Kevin's mom before she is wheeled into the surgery area. We were told that the surgery would last about an hour and recovery time is between 3-4 hours. They said we should go home to rest and come back after 4-5 hours.

We went back to the hospital after about 3 and a half hours, checked the screen and saw that Kevin's mom is already in the recovery room. The nurse said that she will be there probably for another hour but we can go chill out in her room and just wait for them to bring her up once she is fully recovered. They then gave us her room number. She has a single room, so that's pretty good. Kevin and I then went to the nearby mall to get her a huge balloon bouquet so that she can see it the moment is gets back from surgery! The sun balloon was so huge it was kinda tricky to get it in the car! Hahahaha!

When we got back, she was already in the room with a visitor already!! Soon, a few other friends (from her choir group and Red Hats ladies) and her cousin and cousin's husband also visited her. She was in very good spirits, even though she was hooked up to so many things. She had a pint of blood, IV (sorry mom, it's not Bbruan, it's from Baxter), oxygen, her morphine dispensing machine, some machine that monitors the amount of oxygen she is getting as well as a machine that moves her operated leg and massages her other leg. After she had her dinner and when the visitors trickled down, we went home and let her get some much needed rest. Will blog more about her second day in the hospital later on.