CDH Repair #3

Third times the charm, right?  Surgery went very well this morning.  The anesthesiologist scared us with the possibility of putting in another central line if they couldn't the IV access they needed, but they were able to get two peripheral lines and one arterial line.  The surgeon was able to do the repair laparoscopically, which is awesome and should hopefully make our recovery hospital stay a little shorter.  He was very excited when he came out of the OR and even brought pictures and told us he will have the video for us next week!  He said the video is what he will be showing at his international lectures over the next year because of how great this repair went.  The diaphragm itself had ripped away from the gortex patch and that allowed the loop of bowel into his chest.  He was able to use a type of stitching to reattach the diaphragm to an additional piece of gortex that will give Lalo more room to grow.  The way that it was ripped away makes the surgeon think it was the retching that caused the reherniation.  Possibly when Lalo had the stomach bug in July, his vomiting/retching caused it to start to break away and he has never quite been back to how he was in those two good months. 

He is very confident this repair will stick for a long time if we can go about a month with no vomiting.  That ought to give him a good amount of time to heal.  He wants this to work so if Lalo starts any funny business before then, he won't hesitate to act on it.  Until then we will also have to keep with feeds into the jejunum.  Statistically, at this age and again at around 9 or 10 is when you go through a certain growth spurt that makes your odds of reherniating higher.  The surgeon also gave us lots of reminders that by the time Lalo is 5 or 6 this phase of life will just be a bad memory. The biggest risks to him now is each time we go into that OR, so his goal for us is to go at least a few years before anything else surgical (we could also do with never!).

Lalito was allowed to go to "the floor" after surgery instead of the picu!  This is wonderful because it says that he really didn't give them any scares in the OR, and it is a much more relaxed place to allow for healing (not to mention there is a fold out chair that I can sleep on).  He still has his 2 IVs and a chest tube.  He is on a morphine drip, and overall seems pretty comfortable.  Unfortunately, he hasn't really peed since surgery so they are getting ready to do a foley catheter - poor guy!  The surgeon is also keeping a close eye on him for the next few days for any bowel issues as a result of moving them back into his abdomen.  Any problems with that would send us back to the OR in a heartbeat.  Today they will do 1/2 pedialyte through his j-tube and 1/2 IV fluids, and hopefully over the next day or so work our way back to full feeds.

Thank you all for your prayers.  We have once again been very blessed and our warrior has stayed very strong.