Surgery Update

Yesterday we had to be at the hospital at 9:30, so we left our house around 6:45 am. Thankfully Fiona slept the whole way there. When we got there we were taken right back to the PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) because she is on a vent. They weighed her (she is 14 lbs. 9 oz.) and did all the paper work, etc. She was being her silly little self rolling around on the bed and trying to eat everything. Well we have no idea why we had to be there at 9:30 because they didn't come get her until 12! Then Tom and I and my parents went to the cafeteria and got something to eat and then up to the waiting room. Around 1:45 the nurse liason came out to talk to us and we thought she was going to tell us that she was in recovery- oh no, she wasn't, they had just started the surgery! They had trouble finding a vein for an IV so they had to place a central line before they started. So finally at about 4, Dr. Burns came out to talk to us. The surgery went great! He did her hernia first which was a pretty simple procedure. OH, and what we thought was intestine protruding through the hernia (that we could feel) was actually her ovary! Then he explained the surgery on her O. Ok, bear with me here, it is kind of confusing and a little graphic! First he made a cut down the whole center of the O (in the skin) and opened it up. He said most of his time was spent seperating the skin from the organs because they had become fused together. Then he widened the opening because it was so small he wanted it to be a little easier to put things back in. We also learned that there was more in her O than we thought. It contained her liver (almost the entire thing), small intestine, and stomach, and we knew all of those. But it also contained her spleen (we weren't sure about that one), gallbladder, and small part of her appendix. He put back what he could, not really sure what is where now. Then he attached a Gortex Patch to the opening and up around the organs. Then put the skin back over top of the patch. He cut off about 1/2 of the skin that was there. As he was talking to us they took her up to the PICU to recover and we got to see her at about 4:30. She was still sleepy and slowly woke up over the next couple hours. We couldn't believe how small her O was! It is about 1/4 of the size that it was! All evening she was kind of in and out of it. She would wake up and freak out because she didn't know where she was or what was going on and then would fall right back to sleep. She did really well over night.

Before surgery they put in a nerve blocker (kind of like an epidural) to manage her pain. This has been working really well for her and she hasn't needed much of anything else for pain. Today she is still kind of in a out of it, but awake more than yesterday. She is just really mad when she is awake because she is so hungry. She is on IV fluids like she was in the NICU and has an NG tube in that is suctioning out her stomach. We are waiting for the surgeons to round to give the OK to take out the NG tube and start feeding her. She is so hungry that she has been sucking the water off of a mouth swab and then gets mad when it is gone! She pretty much has to be eating ok for her to go home. Her breathing seems ok, at least no worse! They had to turn her BPM up to 18 and oxygen to 30% after surgery, which is normal, but today they are back to 14 and room air.

Over all she is doing awesome and the nurses all love her (like normal)! We are expecting to be here for 3 or 4 days so hopefully we will be home Saturday or Sunday. I will keep everyone updated!