“He is okay.” Dr. LaQuaglia mixed it up tonight from his typical, “He is fine.” Thankfully they both mean the same thing. The surgery went well and he didn’t need to use the mesh after all. They were able to pull it together and use permanent stitches on the inside and 3 week stitches on the outside.
As long time followers know, the number of tubes are important to Eli. In fact, they said that the second he woke up, he pointed to his NG tube and cried. The second Lacey and I walked through the doors into the PACU (the term for the OR recovery room here at Sloan), he pointed to his NG tube and cried. That is by far his least favorite part. So the tube count is as follows: one catheter, one NG, one drainage tube in his belly. That’s it! They were able to extubate the vent so he doesn’t have that tube. PLUS, his oxygen is so good that they just set a tube next to his head, he doesn’t have the nose tubes for the oxygen. Tomorrow they have promised to remove the catheter and most likely the NG as well since they only had it in there as a precaution, unlike before when it was very necessary. After a week or so, the drainage tube should be able to come out as well.
The biggest mystery is all of the gas and air that keeps filling him up. It is moving through, just slowly and nobody is quite sure why that is. Dr. LaQuaglia told Eli that he was a mystery. 🙂 Our secret hope is that once his wound is healing and there are no more infections, his bowels will get back on track and functioning normally again.
The immediate remedy is TPN (nutrition in a bag), which is already going, and lots of different antibiotics. Dr. L mentioned having to use antibiotics for quite a while, so the unknown factor is whether our July 28th 3F8 is going to be delayed once again because of this surgery setback. We’ll see, it’s too early to tell at this point I think. Next Wednesday is when Eli would have to start drinking the beta glucan, so we’ll definitely know by then!
Neither we, nor Dr. LaQuaglia wanted to have to send Eli across the street to the New York Pres. hospital to stay in their PICU, but it was looking possible because the POU here at Sloan is full tonight. And by ‘full’, I mean all three beds are taken. They compromised and decided to leave Eli in the surgery recovery area, even though it’s really geared towards adults. They felt comfortable that he was doing well enough after surgery that he could stay here, but not QUITE comfortable enough to just send him back up to his room on the 9th floor. So as a precaution, we are going to stay here until first thing tomorrow morning. Then we’ll move back upstairs. I am thanking God that we didn’t have to go to the PICU across the street, that would have added a new level of stress. Many of the parents reading this carepage that have been treated here and sent over there know what I’m talking about. It’s just nice to be able to stay here with hopes of moving back up to the ninth floor quickly. It took some convincing, but they even agreed to let me leave all of our stuff in our room up there and promised to save it for us for when we get back so we don’t have to move rooms just because of being gone for one night.
As we’ve said before, we are so grateful that we were in NY when this all happened. We are also thankful to have so many great friends to count on to pray at a moment’s notice. We really love hearing the stories about how the bracelets help you to remember to pray for Eli, that is exactly what they are for. Remember, if you want some bracelets, you can send your request in to us here in NYC. Choose the 06/09/08 update from the drop down menu and scroll to the bottom for instructions. Also, we never tire of reading Message Board posts (both private and public) from those that have just started following this carepage or that have been following for a long time *silently* and finally wanted to say hi. Thanks everyone, I’ll report back with the progress tomorrow night!
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