June 4: Makenna's Surprise Surgery

Having a baby in the NICU for any kind of extended stay is an emotional roller coaster experience.  Your child might take one step forward, two steps back, five steps forward, and then three steps back.  You continue hoping that overall you are headed in the right direction.  However, the ultimate goal of bringing your baby home feels like it will never arrive...

Before surgery with her oral feeding tube

Makenna was scheduled for a gastric feeding tube (g-tube) placement on June 4.  This was supposed to be a straight forward and simple operation.  Friday before the surgery, they took an x-ray of her gastrointestinal system to make sure that everything was ok... It wasn't.

The Pediatric Surgeons that would be doing the surgery called us on Monday evening to tell us that Makenna's bowls were malrotated.  Basically, her bowls were not in the right place.  Her bowls have worked so far and so we did not know there was a problem until they looked.  Because things were working, she was in no imediate danger, but she had a high risk of her intestines twisting if we did not correct the problem.  They also discovered that her stomach and liver were in her lower rib cage and poking a hole through the diaphragm   The surgeons told us the plan was now to put things in a better possition, fix the diaphragm, insert the g-tube, and while they were at it, remove her appendix (just for fun).

Just after coming back from surgery

All of the sudden a simple surgery turned into a major one and they wanted to do it the next day.  I was a little overwhelmed, but Ken and I gave our consent because this could help her to be more comfortable and possibly help her breathing by fixing her diaphragm.  Tuesday was a big day!  Ken came down for the day and got to hold Makenna for the first time.  It was a special time.  They ended up taking her for the operation around 4:00pm even though it was tentatively set for noon.  She returned to the NICU at 8:30pm.  The surgeon said that is went as expected with no excitement, which is good.  She has an epidural for local anesthesia and other pain meds are given to her on a needs basis.  She looked pretty good after surgery and seems to be doing well.  The best part being that she has no tubes in her mouth and so we can now see her beautiful face with nothing in the way.  We are trying to keep her pain under control and her job now is to just rest, heal, and recover.

Walking with Makenna: Hummelstown

Because Makenna was doing so well after her surgery and we couldn't really do much with her, mom and I took another break from the hospital.  We were in downtown Hummelstown, a cute little town.  It was perfect weather and we knew it was going to rain tomorrow.  We had a pleasant evening and a nice man even gave us his left over Chinese food.  So, you could say that I painted for my dinner, hahaha....