D Day

I couldn't update the blog during Wil's surgery and hospital stay because we had problems with connection at the hospital. So by the time you are reading this, we are back home and hopefully resting comfortably. The surgery was a success, according to Wil's neurosurgeon. He had to cut away a lot more of the bulging disc portion than he had anticipated and did say that his one very bad disc was indeed very sickly looking and compacted (was he hinting at a bigger replacement surgery down the road?). But he is optimistic that most of the pain in his leg, and eventually in his back, will be greatly reduced, if not entirely eliminated.

When we had Wil's preop on Wednesday, his first question to the good doctor was whether or not it would be possible for him to go to Airborne school after all was said and done. It had always been his dream to earn a jump wing, as he was supposed to go to the school for it after he came home from that deployment during which he got hurt. I don't think his surgeon was too keen on the idea but he gave a political non-committal kind of answer. However, after opening him up yesterday and seeing the kind of damage his back already endured, I'm certain his answer would be a definite no. Well, I am planning to use my executive veto power if he should decide otherwise. I think we have had enough excitement to last us a boring life time.

I also didn't take a lot of pictures right after his surgery. First I thought it would be funny to look back at the pictures of him being so out of it from being put under but quickly realized that this was one memory I didn't want to ever recall. Wil is my rock and having to watch his inability to perform the simplest task, like holding down a couple of sips of water, was painful to witness. We were up most of the night, as his body was having quite a reaction to coming out of general anesthesia. I'm happy to report that things are looking up as of mid day Saturday. He ate and held down both breakfast and lunch, went for a walk down the hall and stairs with his physical therapist, and is now watching "Apollo 13" in bed with relative ease with an aid of a good pain killer. We are awaiting a visit from his neurosurgeon, who needs to check his wound site, before he can be discharged. Chase and I are doing fine. The room has a pseudo reclining chair, in which we slept, and we got plenty of exercise from walking to and from everywhere. I swear they put him in a recovery room furthest away from the cafeteria for a reason. More than likely he would be put in a back brace due to the more involved surgery and the sheer fact that Wil has been living with the pain for so long he wouldn't know when he was pushing his back too hard.

There will be plenty of updates to come. Thank you for all your kind words and help you are giving us and the boys. We truly appreciate the love :). Chat again soon!