surgery extravaganza!

hi baby=)

it's saturday. you had surgery wednesday. you were a little bit hilarious before you went into the or. when the anesthesiologist came in to check you out you were flirting with him like mad!! miss tamara came to see you (she was one of our respiratory therapists from the nicu) and she loved seeing your flirtatious side up and roaring=) dr rodgers had already planned on giving you a g-tube, a nissen, and doing a pyloroplasty to help your tummy empty faster. and then a couple hours into the surgery his nurse called us from the operating room and asked if they could take out your appendix. i thought that was funny. the point is that you're getting to the age that appendicitis is kinda common and with all your abdominal surgeries, it would be pretty difficult to find your appendix if they went in just to remove it. so on the phone he said it was sitting right there next to what he was working on and he would just take it out if it was ok with us. it was. so anyway you had quite a surgery!! all those things and an appendectomy thrown in at the end. you did great during the whole thing. he said you were very stable and lost just a little tiny bit of blood. afterwards you were pretty sleepy for a couple days from the anesthesia. the plan was that you couldn't eat anything for 3 days and then we'd start feeding you through your g-tube and get you on your way. well my sweet girl, you are not cooperating...no worries though-we like you fiesty;) we noticed last night that your tummy was really distended (super swollen and tight) so they got an x-ray and it showed a bunch of gas (not surprising) and that you have an ileus in part of your intestines. an ileus is where you have some food stuck in your bowel because your belly hasn't woken up yet from anesthesia and it doesn't realize it needs to work your food on through. that's no good baby. most of the time it wakes up in a reasonable amount of time and you'll poop it right out (sorry to talk about poop baby, but a lot of your wellness revolves around it right now!) but if that doesn't happen you would have to have surgery again because it might mean something else is blocking your food from coming out. yikes. we'll pray that doesn't happen. so i have been spending most of today squeezing and raising and lowering your little g-tube getting all your little gastric juices and gas out of there since they have nowhere else to go right now. it's been helping-your tummy is softer and you seem a little more comfortable. you can do it baby=) and then they also noticed on a chest x-ray that the lower lobe of your left lung looks like it collapsed a little bit and there's some fluid surrounding it. that's not good, but it definitely could be worse. usually it just pops back open after a few days. on to issue #3. you're still having fevers. the first couple days post-op it's pretty normal to have an elevated temperature but it's post-op day 3 and it's a low-grade one, but it's still there. they checked your white blood cell count and drew cultures of your blood and sputum (that's a weird word, huh? it's one of my least favorites) and so far so good. your white count is actually lower than it was a couple days ago. but the temperature is making your heart beat really fast and it's just making us worry a little bit. mommy was so worried about this surgery and i kinda thought i was being crazy...or maybe just a normal mom. but i kept thinking that you've gotten so far and what if some random thing happens with this surgery that sets you back, etc, etc.....and i still am probably just being crazy but i can't help but stare at your monitors constantly and rack my brain over and over to try and figure out why whatever is happening at that particular moment is happening. i guess it's somewhat appropriate because you get tons less attention here (on a pediatric floor) than you did in the nicu...i suppose it's my job now, huh? i don't mind. i just want you to be all better and at home with us. daddy does too. he keeps asking you to just go ahead and poop so we can be on our way. you haven't smiled at all since before your surgery wednesday morning. we are missing you so much. today though you did start playing with your toys again-reaching out for them and putting them in your mouth. you started sucking on your pacifier too. it makes us relax just a little to see you doing those things again. but we do hope to see you smile soon. i was crying a little today thinking about how much i am missing "you" and how i even miss your throw up smell-and i keep doing things that normally make you laugh and you just stare at me. soon enough sweet baby and we'll have you back to normal. better than normal even.

so we'll see how long you stay here. the plan was that you'd stay here a week so this wednesday you'd go home...but i'm not feeling super optimistic about that. that's ok. you just take your time. i love you sweet baby-you and me and daddy will just hang out in this hospital room until you feel better. i am so proud of you=)

mommy