It’s been two weeks since my mom’s surgery and I’m pleased to report that things are moving along smoothly.

Although we went over the process a million times, I still wasn’t sure that what was expected was what was going to happen. We were scared but managed to put on a brave face for my mom, and I suspect she did the same for us.

Her surgery got delayed for about two hours, so we spend most of the day in the surgery prep/waiting area. At some point we thought it was going to get cancelled, until her surgeon came by and assured us that it was still on and he was on his way to get ready.

My mom didn’t get wheeled to the operating room until after 2:00PM; we’d been at the hospital since 10:30AM. The surgery was supposed to take two hours and another two hours in post surgery before we could see her. We said out goodbyes and good lucks and watched her go through the heavy double doors.

My sister and I were hungry and apprehensive, which isn’t a good feeling at all. We grabbed a quick lunch at the Whole Foods on Cambie (their Burrito Bar by the way, is no Chipotle’s but good too), and decided to walk towards South Granville, walking does the mind good, my mom always says.

It was pleasantly long, we window shopped, fielded calls and generally tried to keep our minds off what was really going on. We were in Chapters when the call came, Dr. McGregor (my mom’s surgeon) called to let us know that the surgery went very well, and everything is fine. We still had two hours to wait while she was in Recovery. We returned calls from friends and family, my uncle Sam must have called a thousand times.

We made our way back to the hospital and called the ward where she’s supposed to go after recovery, she hadn’t been brought up yet; they said they’d call as soon as she was brought up.

A few minutes later we got a call that she’s being kept in recovery for a few more hours, we tried not to panic and decided to go home and wait.

We had to walk strange meandering floors to get to the car because the parking lot was closed and the elevators shut off.

We got a call at 10:30PM that she’d been brought up and we can see her briefly. We went back to the hospital, mom was awake and lucid, she sounded hoarse, had a cough and her throat was sore from the breathing tube. She stayed longer in recovery because of a spike in her blood sugar. Our visit was brief, we were just was thankful and relieved that this part of the journey was over.

We returned to the hospital bright and early the next morning to find my mom already up, sitting, chatting and looking much better, it was such a pleasant surprise!

We hung out in her room (with a view) while she got poked and prodded; she went downstairs for X-rays, blood drawn, and a whole 8 person physio team to walk her through her exercises.

She came home with us that night, a home nurse comes by every day but she’s doing so well, these days she just phones it in.

I get asked a lot how my mom is doing, I ask her how she’s doing all the time too; as if I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So I tell them what she tells me… she’s doing very well. She’s a fighter that one.

Here are the rest of the surgery set -Â from flickr