Peter had surgery on Friday to resolve the issue of why no more stool was coming out of his rectum. After the last surgery two months ago, he had great success with stooling for about a week, and then it all just stopped. Dr. Jennings agreed to do another surgery, but it was unclear why the stool was not coming all the way through any more. One of the possibilities was that the colon had folded over again and that the fold would surgically need to be removed (big surgery), or the other issue was that the stoma itself was the issue and needed another revision (minor surgery).
As the bowel fluoroscopy via enema was mentally horrendous for Peter when he had it done two months ago, Dr. Jennings and Dr. Kamin agreed to look at things when Peter was already asleep in surgery, and then come out and tell us which surgery Peter would need. To our great elation, the fold was not the issue, but the stoma was, and Dr. Jennings felt that the problem with it was that it prolapses. To resolve that, he decided to go ahead and close it off completely (a little more than minor surgery, but not the bigger one like a fold would have required). Peter went into surgery at 8 am, the doctors came out about 9 am to discuss the surgical plan to close the ostomy completely, and he was in recovery at noon. He went straight to the regular floor, no ICU. Amazing!
What a great joy to see no ostomy bag there, but a simple 2X2 gauze dressing and some tegaderm plastic covering instead! He still has a drain in the wound, but it puts out very little. Peter was given the OK to try clear fluids today. Unfortunately, he ended up needing to vent his G-tube by the end of the day and there was 300+ dark green bile in his stomach. However, his demeanor suggests that this is not a big deal, just a minor issue. Hopefully that is so. He is back to being off all fluids by mouth overnight, and we'll try again tomorrow. Peter walked over a mile yesterday, and over three miles today. The only pain med he has needed was one dose of Tylenol on Friday evening, and two doses on Saturday. We should all feel this good after bowel surgery!
To say we are thankful to God that Peter's bowel is in full continuity again is an understatement. This child had three emergency surgeries in 2006 that left him with FOUR ostomies, and he now has none. There have been thousands of prayers said for Peter over the years, and to see him with no appliances on his belly other than a tiny G-tube now is a beautiful sight, scars and all. We continue to pray that Peter's bowel recovers well from the surgery and that he is able to finally get off and stay off TPN.
Hopefully this computer will let me update more as he recovers. It is an old computer and very temperamental... completely non-functional last night, but worked immediately tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment