Tom's (lack of) Operation

Just a quick note.

We went to Heartlands hospital in Birmingham today for Tom's operation to fox his lung. We'd had only about 4 hours sleep and had to get up at 5am to be picked up at about 6.30am by Tom's mum and got to the hospital for about 8am.

And waited...

And were warned that they were lacking beds so the operation may be cancelled but we would have to wait to see.

More waiting...

Tom was fasting so not allowed any food or drink all day as he could have been called up at any moment. There were other people waiting for different surgeries in the same area and in the afternoon several of them were told due to a problem in one of the earlier surgeries with a patient they needed to cancel the afternoon ones. No one was pleased but felt more grateful that they were not the poor person on the table having who knows what issues.

More waiting...  [I am skimming over how tired, sick and bored we felt all day. And stressed and fed up because hospitals generally seem to involve a lot of waiting around and watching the staff attempt to organise themselves to say "not sure" to any of your questions.]

4pm rolls round, a full 8 hours after we checked in, and unfortunately there had been problems in the thoracic theatre too so they had to cancel Tom's operation. He was not too happy but the surgeon came and apologised and explained the issue.

The result is that Tom is staying overnight in a ward so he is guaranteed a bed and will probably have the op on Sat (maybe tomorrow if he is lucky) and got some dinner. We hope to be able to visit him tomorrow evening as he will probably have been bored all day. I feel lonely at home by myself so bless him being stuck on a strange ward in a weird bed surrounded by sick people when he is currently fine.

More updates as and when we know. All prayer requests needed!