A day late.
Yesterday was "Scotty's" birthday. Scotty is Heather's ileostomy that she recieved a year ago after a lost battle with ulcerative colitis. She named him Scotty after hearing him "poot" for the first time a few days after surgery. She says "Scotty shhh!" (Think Austin Powers movies)
Heather's liver is doing quite well. In fact, it's doing so good that her transplant Dr. believes it could be quite some time before she gets a transplant.
For her quality of life he believes that she should get the ileostomy reversal.
We spoke with the surgeon that performed the colectomy, and ileostomy, Dr. Schindle.
He told us of all the risks, including, but not limited to, major blood loss requiring blood transfusions that could put a major strain on her already sick liver.
First we had to get an upper GI done to make sure her small intestine was long enough to reach to her rectum. Something I hadn't even thought about was that when she was an infant and had her cholecystostomy (bile drain surgery) performed , they took a section of jejunum (last part of small intestine) to form her stoma. Resulting in less length, a major concern for Dr. Schindle. After the upper GI they determined that there was plenty of length. Now there's a concern of blood vessels that anchor the small intestine.
After scaring the crap out of all of us, which I'd rather be scared, than caught off gaurd, he said that he believes that for Heather to have any sort of happiness, and quality of life, the risks are not too much to proceed.
We don't have a date yet. The scheduler could have scheduled for May 25th, but Heather's having her 16th Birthday on June 7th (Her birthday is June 8th). She would not want to be healing during her party. Last year she was wearing a wound vac at her 15th birthday party. Her incision site had become badly infected because her liver was so sick from coping with all the blood transfusions. The liver manufactures healing proteins, at least in my understanding.
Heather got a 24' pool from the Make-a-Wish foundation two weeks ago. She's planning a very large swimming/karaoke party.
Heather's liver is doing quite well. In fact, it's doing so good that her transplant Dr. believes it could be quite some time before she gets a transplant.
For her quality of life he believes that she should get the ileostomy reversal.
We spoke with the surgeon that performed the colectomy, and ileostomy, Dr. Schindle.
He told us of all the risks, including, but not limited to, major blood loss requiring blood transfusions that could put a major strain on her already sick liver.
First we had to get an upper GI done to make sure her small intestine was long enough to reach to her rectum. Something I hadn't even thought about was that when she was an infant and had her cholecystostomy (bile drain surgery) performed , they took a section of jejunum (last part of small intestine) to form her stoma. Resulting in less length, a major concern for Dr. Schindle. After the upper GI they determined that there was plenty of length. Now there's a concern of blood vessels that anchor the small intestine.
After scaring the crap out of all of us, which I'd rather be scared, than caught off gaurd, he said that he believes that for Heather to have any sort of happiness, and quality of life, the risks are not too much to proceed.
We don't have a date yet. The scheduler could have scheduled for May 25th, but Heather's having her 16th Birthday on June 7th (Her birthday is June 8th). She would not want to be healing during her party. Last year she was wearing a wound vac at her 15th birthday party. Her incision site had become badly infected because her liver was so sick from coping with all the blood transfusions. The liver manufactures healing proteins, at least in my understanding.
Heather got a 24' pool from the Make-a-Wish foundation two weeks ago. She's planning a very large swimming/karaoke party.
posted by Cathy at 4/30/2009 08:15:00 AM
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