Matthew's surgery is complete and he did amazingly well!
J.P. and I came down to the NICU at 6:45 this morning so we would be here to meet with his surgeon and anesthesiologist. The surgeon, Dr. Oyetunji, came in and introduced himself and explained how he planned to go about surgery. He said they were hoping to be able to do everything thoroscopically, with only a camera and a few very small incisions. He asked if we had any questions and then went back to get ready. The anesthesiologist came to get Matthew and take him to the OR. It took a whole train of nurses to get all of Matthew's equipment rolling down the hall towards the OR. It was hard to watch them go, but also a huge relief to know that this is the big major thing we have been dreading for months, and it would soon be behind us.
A nurse called to give us updates throughout the surgery. I am still an in-patient, so J.P. and I were able to wait in my room. Luckily we were distracted by so many of our friends sending us pictures of our big boys enjoying field day at school! It helped to make the time pass relatively quickly and put smiles on our faces. We finally got a call that they were finishing up surgery and the surgeon would be up to talk to us soon. He said everything went very well and that they were able to do everything thoroscopically with only four small incisions- the largest of which is only 1/2 centimeter wide. They were able to simply sew up the diaphragm without using a patch. Everything was the absolute best case scenario.
About an hour later we finally got to see Matthew back in the NICU. He looks almost the same as when he headed out this morning, but with a couple extra tubes. We have been with him all afternoon, and he has been sleeping peacefully the whole time. His vitals are all doing well and they are slowly weaning him back to pre-surgery levels on his ventilator. He is exceeding everybody's expectations here at the hospital!
They did a chest X-Ray when he got all settled in the NICU to make sure everything was in the right place. The image above shows the comparison of his chest X-Ray before and after. The difference is astounding! You can easily see how the liver was up crowding his lung on his right side (the left side of the picture). Most babies who have CDH have a very small lung on the affected side. Matthew's appears to be almost full-size. In fact, the only issue they had during surgery was that his lung was so big that it was getting in their way a bit. We feel so lucky to be on the good side of all of the CDH statistics.
Mighty Matty continues to amaze us and all of the doctors and nurses here. We hope his recovery continues to be smooth, but we know there will likely be some bumps along the way. From my point of view, every tube that comes out along the way will be a small victory and a step towards getting him home. We absolutely can not wait to have our entire family all under our roof in Tulsa! We have a ways to go, but we are moving in the right direction.
I am being discharged today, so J.P. and I will be back at our little house. The big boys are coming up for the weekend. We hope they will each get to spend a bit of time with Matthew and maybe read him a book or two.
Thank you for all the texts, emails, phone calls and prayers. Each and every one of them is so appreciated!
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