Heather update....
Her surgery began around 1:45 Tuesday, April 29th. The day after her daddy's 37th b-day.
The surgery lasted a little over 6 hours. The surgeon, Dr. Shindle, had a nurse call us and update us in the waiting room regularly. He had originally planned for 3 hours, but in light of her liver disease, and bad portal hypertension, there were a lot more blood vessels than he had anticipated. We aren't sure whether or not she will be able to have the future operations to close the ileostomy, or not. We just have to wait and see if her sick liver will heal enough to get her through the other operations before she gets her transplant. It's probably not likely to happen if she has to get the transplant first. The immunosuppressants would make it hard for her to heal, from my understanding.
She went straight to the ICU post-op. While it's nice to get all this one on one care for her, there's even less privacy than on the GI floor.... I slept in my clothes, but was called directly after laying down by the charge nurse for the gi floor. I needed to come move all of Heather's stuff out of her room. Two large rolling carts, and one big red wagon filled with clothes, stuffed animals, books, magazines, plants, balloons, etc.. We've been waiting all day to get back to her normal floor.
The surgery lasted a little over 6 hours. The surgeon, Dr. Shindle, had a nurse call us and update us in the waiting room regularly. He had originally planned for 3 hours, but in light of her liver disease, and bad portal hypertension, there were a lot more blood vessels than he had anticipated. We aren't sure whether or not she will be able to have the future operations to close the ileostomy, or not. We just have to wait and see if her sick liver will heal enough to get her through the other operations before she gets her transplant. It's probably not likely to happen if she has to get the transplant first. The immunosuppressants would make it hard for her to heal, from my understanding.
She went straight to the ICU post-op. While it's nice to get all this one on one care for her, there's even less privacy than on the GI floor.... I slept in my clothes, but was called directly after laying down by the charge nurse for the gi floor. I needed to come move all of Heather's stuff out of her room. Two large rolling carts, and one big red wagon filled with clothes, stuffed animals, books, magazines, plants, balloons, etc.. We've been waiting all day to get back to her normal floor.
posted by Cathy at 4/30/2008 05:13:00 PM
2 Comments:
I read it twice to make sure I didn't miss anything. Did everything go ok? I saw your photos, she looks like a porcelain doll in the photo (with the pickle! lol)
The photos with the pickle were taken before surgery. They allowed her to pass some liquids through her colon since she wasn't keeping it anyway.
She's doing good.. just having some problems with oxygenation right now.
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