Surgery went well – on the road to recovery!
Thanks to our generous friends Jason and Melissa Oman, we were able to all get a comfortable night’s rest the day before Evan’s 8th surgery. Their children, Erik and Kennedy, provided much-needed entertainment the night before and were great with Evan. It’s like Kennedy is a natural big sister. 🙂 I don’t think you have any idea what comfort it brings to not have that point of stress (where to sleep) taken care of and to not have yet another thing on your mind when your child is hospitalized. I would give this place a 5-star rating. 🙂
We arrived at the hospital plenty early. Checking in was no problem. Sitting in Evan’s room, going over his med history for the millionth time – luckily we have learned to print a summary containing med info, medical summary, medical timeline, food/allergy info, and contact info. So essentially the nurse starts with, “Is he still taking 1/2 a baby aspirin a day?” And then we say yes, whip out this sheet, hand it over, and pretty much get no more questions from the nurse as she looks everything over. I suggest doing something similar if you have a complicated medical history too; it saves a bit of sanity. Plus, meds are always wrong with every admission and it helps keep yourself straight when trying to talk to the many nurses and doctors that come in with incorrect information.
The nurse asked if we had any questions for the doctor and we had 1. When the g-tube is placed, it pulls your stomach up and it becomes attached to the inner wall of the abdominal muscles (which is why it is vitally important to always keep a tube in the stoma the first 3 months of placement). Our question was whether they were going to detach his stomach from his abdomen so his stomach isn’t tented at his old site and new site too. The surgeon, Dr. Jason Frischer, came in and talked to us about it. He said it will still be tented a bit there. He then looked over Evan’s tummy and had his thinking face on; you could tell he was mulling over details. He talked about doing the surgery one way, then left and came back after a bit. He must have talked to someone else or looked something up because he came back with a different approach to the surgery. Initially, he was going to give Evan a lengthy incision at his old site (essentially from the end of his cardiac scar all the way to his belly button – talk about a zipper!) But he instead said he was going to try to put a camera scope in through his belly button and look at his stomach and at the site and check everything out. If all looked like he thought, he would have another scope placed down his esophagus and into his stomach to not only look at the old site but also to help aid in putting the new button in so they can get it in exactly the location they want while avoiding any obstacles or any areas that they didn’t want to operate in. Essentially they would have the needle on the outside in the place where they want to put the button, puncture through the skin, fat, and muscles, and be able to watch it being placed in the tummy and make sure everything was perfect. With this approach, the incision for his old site would be much smaller, only an inch or so, and this not only makes a smaller scar but also makes a smaller area that needs to heal and lessens the chance for infection.
Evan also had to meet with electrophysiology. They came and changed the settings on his pacemaker. Instead of being DDD they changed him to DOO for the surgery. The idea is that if a patient is intrinsically paced (meaning their heart senses when a beat should occur and then the pacemaker sends the signal to get the heart to contract) there is a potential for interference from surgical tools, like cauterizing instruments. These types of instruments create “noise” and it can trick the pacemaker into thinking a signal was sent to the heart to get it to contract when a signal was never sent – it was just noise. So by changing the setting, they set a heart rate and make the pacemaker send a contraction signal to his heart whether his heart asked for it or not. After surgery they will change the setting back so his heart will beat to his own rhythm Pediatric anesthesiology also stopped by to go over his past issues and complications. It is nice to say that complications he has had (stroke, seizures, adverse reactions, infections) have happened a while ago and we have learned from them. It is also nice that he has had a procedure with anesthesia since the infection (re-implantation of the pacemaker) and had zero complications because of it.
We got to be with Evan as he was in the transfer room to the OR. While waiting the nurse gave him a little mask to play with so when it came time to give him some funny gas he was comfortable with it. He got sleepy, heavy eyes, started getting floppity, and laid down to sleep and he was out. Completely smooth transition. He did so awesome. Dad and I went to get something to eat right away because it would be the longest time until they updated us.
The waiting room has some cool features. You do need to check in and check out with the desk when you are in the area, something I thought was handled better than at UofM. Your child has a random number associated with them and they have this board that will post all of the patient’s numbers and what their status is – in the OR or in recovery or whatever. Kind of like looking at flight information. So I thought that was nice. And when they had an update for you they would announce it over a loud speaker. When the surgery is over, they called you back to a consultation room, even if just for a minute, to talk with the surgeon in private and tell you the details. Then when then Evan was in the recovery room and ready for visitors they called us back and we got to be with him as he woke up from sedation. Once our room was cleaned and ready we moved up to 6A central, which is the step-down cardiac floor (ie general cardiac floor). We hope to be one of the easiest rooms on the floor!
Right now he is just chill and relaxing and resting by watching some SpongeBob. Unfortunately the TV isn’t connected to the internet so we won’t have any Peep unless Dad can nerd rig something up. I’ve already heard about wrong HDMI cables and it’s already too over my head. But if there is any nerd that can do it for his boy, it’s his Dadda.
More pics and updates later. A big thank you to everyone for their words of encouragement, thoughts, and prayers for Evan and us today. It was Evan’s 8th surgery and it never gets easier. Especially because we know all too well how “simple” procedures can become complicated in literally a heartbeat. We’re infinitely grateful that this g-tube surgery went better than the last one. So thank you very much for your continued support!
