A (rather) long day.

We were to count on the operation taking most of the day, the surgeon told us yesterday. This morning, at 07.15, we we came to the hospital, gave Abbe a last shower with an antiseptic sponge before leaving him, asleep, in the hands of the anaesthetist at 08.00.

"It often takes a little longer when you have been operated on before – like in Abbe’s case”, said the surgeon. “There’s a lot of scar tissue to get through before you can start operating. For the first operation it takes roughly 30 minutes to open up the chest and then everything is there, but now we are counting on 2-3 hours."

"The actual procedure takes a couple of hours", he continued. "It’s a more involved intervention than the ones we have done on Abbe before. More complicated. On top of that, the anesthesiologists need some time before and after, in order to do their job. So count on being able to visit ICU late afternoon or evening."

How it was: Abbe was put to sleep at 08.00.
They started to operate at 10.00.
The surgeon called just before 15.00 to say he had finished his job.
At 16.30 they called from ICU to say we could come up.

So, quicker than we had expected. That was lovely.