Thursday, September 3, 2009

It's Finally over, Sort Of

Sorry I wasn't able to update earlier, it's been a busy day.
We arrived for surgery at 7am this morning. V was something else, he danced and ran all over pre-op. He peek-a-boo'd me half to death. I was wiped out. But happy that he was able to enjoy his final pre surgery hours.

Just before 9am the surgical nurse came to escort V back to the O.R.
As always she put out her arms to carry my little snuggle bug to the back, and was greeted with an enthusiastic.. No!

He was decidedly NOT interested.

After some sweet talking he finally agreed to go but he was going to walk like a big boy for the first time. So I put on his little red socks with the sticky treads and off he went. Holding the nurses hand and waving bye bye with a big smile.

I was kicking myself for forgetting the camera... Grrr!

Daddy's going to bring it tomorrow.

Surgery took close to two hours and he stayed in recovery for nearly that long after.
The PACU advised me that any time they tried to stimulate him awake his heart rhythm became "funky". So they decided to wrap him in a warm blanket and post a "hands off!" sign while he slept off the anesthesia.
Due to the funky heart episodes Dr.P wants him monitored more closely so he was admitted into the Special Care Unit, an ICU stepdown.

No complaints here. Not only is the Special Care staff uber capable of managing V's recovery, but the rooms on this unit are basically medically glorified hotel rooms... comfy.

V on the other hand is NOT at this point comfy. Dr.P opened the lower half of his belly and removed the GJ tube and closed off the original stoma. He was only able to close it on the stomach level, the skin depth of the tract will have to close on it's own. The skin is way to jagged to suture. He sent for a consult for wound care to see us tomorrow.

Just below that he placed the new G tube. For now it's just the long tube that's sutured in, but it looks really good.

He did wake up after we got into his room and was in pain. He immediately tried to roll and pulled his belly sutures causing some scary bleeding, but it's slowing.

For now he's getting morphine every 2 hours and tylenol with codeine as needed, so his pain is under better control.
He is also getting zofran for nausea, benadryl for the morphine itchies, and his beloved prevacid.
Plus he's getting two antibiotics.

He did have to be catheterized this evening after not making urine for 8 hours. He's been on fluids all day and got a huge IV bolus but no dice. They did wait until after the morphine dose to do it so he didn't really seem to mind it much. I'm sure he's more comfortable now, he really needed to pee. Hopefully things will fall into place there.

We're watching his IV since supermom forgot to remind anesthesia to place two lines for access. The one they did manage to get is SUPER positional in his wrist and we've almost lost it a number of times. Usually they always place his lines in the O.R. to lessen the torture factor as V has very little peripheral access left. I hate to have IV's placed on the floor. They really do try but after they fail over and over, they usually have to call in a NICU or flight nurse to place one in some ultra uncomfortable spot... ugh.

The plan for now is that V will be kept NPO (nothing by mouth) for two days, then they will gradually start feeds and when he is able to handle them well we can go home, barring any complications. Dr.P has assured me that he's learned his lesson when it comes to V. Take it slow!!!

I really like him.. alot.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some pics tomorrow, say a prayer for a peaceful night. I'll update again in the morning.

Sweet dreams and thank you so much for all the love!

3 comments:

  1. Happy for you that things went well! Hopefully the new G-tube is the beginning of a less troublesome tube-life :-).

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  2. Glad everything went well. It sounds like the staff there is really good and he's in good hands. Darn that morphine that makes you not pee. We've been there before.
    Come on g-tube, we are counting on you to feed this boy with no problems:)

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  3. Awesome news on his surgery. We will keep you in prayers for his pain management and his gtube to work properly.

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