Continuing...

Not really much news other than what we posted earlier.  Dr. Saenz was able to do everything he planned to do without any trouble even with everything in her belly "cattywompus" (that was his quote).  He's planning on going real slow on the feeds, but he will be working with the NICU on how slow.  

We were able to see her briefly before we get kicked out at 6:30 and she looks good.  She has elevated blood pressure and heart rate and a couple other things that happen normally after surgery, but it's something to keep an eye on.  As soon as she wakes up the plan is to extubate her as long as she breaths fine.  

Post-Op

She's out!!!  Our nurse just came in and told us that the surgery went well and she's out.  We're not sure what happened and if they were even able to do both procedures, but the nurse wasn't told otherwise, so it looks like they did.

What we do know:  Her blood pressure stayed steady the whole time.  They started an IV in her foot to give her blood if she needed it (it was Michelle's donated blood) but we don't think she did need it.  She is still ventilated but it's a pretty low setting and she should be able to have that out when she wakes up.

We have a tough little cookie on our hands.  But we're not sure we're tough enough to do this too many more times.  We're both ready to throw up now.     

(Taken before the surgery)

Karsie's In

It took about an hour longer than was scheduled, but Karsie was just taken into surgery.  Dr. Saenz said it typically takes between 55 min. and 2 hours, so he said we'll say about 2 1/2 hours to play it safe.  We would not be at all surprised if it took that long or longer as Karsie's anatomy is not normal.  

Saenz went over the procedure again and it sounds tricky, but possible.  He did say that he would back out of the fundoplication (the procedure that will make it hard to throw up) if he could not do it safely.  He will have to fiddle with the liver a bit to get to the area he needs to do the fundo but each fiddle messes with the blood flow from the liver to the heart, so the less the fiddling the better.  

And the countdown begins...it was much harder letting her go this time around.