Post Surgery Update...

After a long day of waiting, our Little Bug is back in his ICU room resting and trying to recover from his big day. We met with Dr. Kim and he explained the details of the surgery with us. He felt very positive about the overall outcome and went into some of the details about why the surgery lasted so long. First of all, the robotics take a bit longer because when he is working on the machine he has five little arms that are all inserted into Little Bug's abdomen that are working together to take each action he directs. You will see in the pictures that Randy is about to post that the machine is quite large and very technical. They had to blow up Connor's abdomen with CO2 so that everything would, in essesence, float around. After making the five small incisions for the little arms to enter Connor's body, it is then up to Dr. Kim to manuever the arms in the right fashion to direct each movement.

Once he was inside he saw that Connor had an extremely high level of scar damage from his past surgeries and his liver and stomach had actually fused together. He said that at first he was disoriented because of the size and shape of the mass, but once he was able to make sense of everything he began disecting his way through the tissue and everything became clear. He was able to successfully free each of the organs so that they are independent from eachother. It also became quite clear that the hiatal hernia was larger than anticipated. This was the first thing that he fixed. After fixing the hernia he attempted to make his way through more scar tissue to get to the esaphagus to redo the Nissen. Once again he saw where the Nissen had unraveled and attached itself to the liver. Once everything was all cleaned up inside and the scar tissue was removed, he was able to redo the Nissen at the proper tightness. We are hoping that this Nissen will hold and will actually help his reflux symptoms, and in turn help the rest of the GI symptoms.

The end of the surgery was actually the quickest part, as Dr. Kim put it. Because of all the scar tissue that was cut through there were 2 nerves, called Vegas nerves that were severed. Since the nerves are no longer functioning the way they should, Dr. Kim had to go in and cut the Pyloric Valve so that Connor's stomach can empty properly. This was a very quick procedure and once it was finished they were able to remove the Robot and prepare Connor to come back to ICU. Before he left the OR Dr. Kim removed his GJ feeding tube and reinserted a "Mickey Button" G-tube for feedings. This means that he will no longer be fed in his small intestine, but in his stomach. We are very glad about this because that means his feeding will get one step closer to normal. He will have to remain on continuous feeds for at least a month and then we can start transitioning to every three hour feedings and then transition to normal oral feeding. We are excited about this transition!!!

I know that was a lot of technicality, but overall, that is what happened today. Dr. Kim felt confident in the procedure and he feels that this will provide Connor with some relief. At this point, we have no idea what kind of help this is going to give him but we are hopeful that it will be the miracle we are looking for.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and words of support today. Little Bug's recovery is still going to be touchy because his lungs are still very sick. We don't know how long he will have to be on the breathing tube, but it will probably be a while longer. We will post as we have info about his overall outlook and the length of time we think we are going to have to be in the hospital. At this point we're still looking at 2-3 weeks at least.

Again, thank you for all your prayers. We know that God was moving on Connor's behalf today and we are thankful for a surgery without complications. When all is said and done, God is Good!!!

Dear Lord, We thank you for a good outcome today. It may not have been as conclusive as we had hoped, but it was successful!!! Thank you for holding us up today and for being with Little Bug during every second of this long day. Please remain a constant source of comfort for Connor and cradle him close as he is sleeping this evening. Thank you for our precious son, he is a gift from you and we treasure him with all of our hearts. We are blessed dear Lord and we thank you for watching over our little family. Amen.

Lovebug Hugs,
Randy, Lori and Little Bug

PS~ We are holding up pretty well. We're tired, but we're still standing by the grace of God!! Hopefully tonight will be filled with sweet, wonderful sleep (for all of us!!!)