Home From Surgery

Our lack of posting maybe tipped you off to the fact that we are home. Karsie did really well in the hospital once she started eating solids. Her energy and happy attitude came back rather quickly and she was discharged on Saturday. It was supposed to be Friday, but she had a short lived (1 hour), low grade fever... and her surgeon is a stickler for temps.

She is enjoying being out of the hospital... eating... and going for walks/rides to the nearby coffee shop!

And... she is really happy to be able to spend a little extra time with some new stuffie friends (from one of her favorite shows).

No Leaking

Good News! We saw radiology today to see if Karsie's stomach was leaking from the newly placed sutures. If so, there would have been a major surgery done to fix that. It wasn't as simple as going in and putting in an extra stitch. Well, it looks like we don't have to cross that bridge because there wasn't any leaking. Whew. So now Karsie is just working on eating. She is able to eat ice and drink little sips of water for today. Dr. Saenz usually visits us REAL early in the morning while he does his rounds, so we should have a plan tomorrow morning on where we go from there.

Thank you for all your prayers!

Picture Time

Got to take an outing when Sea World came to Children's Hospital for the sick kiddos. Karsie could only handle a little bit and then got pretty tired. She enjoyed the wagon mostly.




Not as scary as Santa, but still not too fun. This guy took an interest in Karsie and was good with her.

Mid-night and Morning Update

Karsie is doing pretty well so far. Our goal is to keep her pain managed and help her heal the internal sutures as best she can. The nurses have been really helpful with that goal. She has been still and calm most of the time!

We had a diaper change yesterday afternoon, but it was dry. We were concerned since she is getting a good deal of IV fluid. The nurses let us know that the orders say that she has 12 hours to urinate before they will use a catheter. Midnight came, and I tried wiping her down with warm water... still nothing. So, around 1:30 she got a new dose of morphine and a catheter (in just long enough to help her eliminate). She did well, and half-way through said, "I go pee pee." We asked if she felt better, and she said, "I feel better." So, hopefully that was the trick to get her to keep going on her own. As of this morning, she still has had a dry diaper- so keep praying for pee.

She slept for about 12 hours last night (off and on), which is better than we had hoped for.

Dr. Saenz came in this morning and said everything looks pretty good. He is trying to be really conservative with her and hope those stitches hold, so she is still not allowed to eat/drink today. He expects to do the barium study tomorrow to check for leakage in her stomach. If that is good, she will get to have liquids. If not, then he will reassess and likely do a second surgery.

This turns out to be a fun day to be at the hospital- Sea World is bringing live penguins to the hospital, and Karsie gets to go see them in a fun little wagon! She is on restricted movement (really light play only), but she is allowed to go down for this special event. I am sure we will be posting pics of that later! In the mean time, Here is a pic of our little Bug

She's Out

It only took an hour, but there are still some concerns. Dr. Saenz came in to do a consult with us after surgery and the first words out of his mouth were "Well, that was tricky." His face was not at all comforting, but it sounds like the surgery went well for what he did.

The basics: Karsie's g-tube created a sort of track (tunnel) from her skin to her stomach. The idea is to cut it out and sew up the stomach and the skin separately. The problem with that is that the sutures would rub each other and create a bigger problem.

The problem: Of course there's a problem. What's two years of ups and downs without one more thing to worry about. Dr. Saenz's concern is that he wasn't able to completely sew up the stomach. He thinks he got it for now, but with the swelling and post surgery issues, the integrity of the tissue isn't that great, which would then make a possible leak. We're going to do a contrast study tomorrow or the next day (barium most likely) to see if she is leaking from the inside. If not, our only concern is to get her eating again. If so, we're in for another surgery. This one would be much more invasive and scary. Pray for no leaking!

Other than that, the actual procedure went well. She is out and in recovery. The incision was small(ish) and isn't presenting any immediate problems. She's not yet awake, but she's holding bunny tight and her sats look good.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!

She's In

The anesthesiologist just took Karsie back at about 10am. We made it through registration and pre-op without any problems. Karsie got to play bubbles and watch TV while waiting for the surgeon to come talk to us. Dr. Saenz came in and is still feeling concerned with the amount of space he has to work with. He doesn't want the stomach incision to rub on the skin incision and cause problems. He expects surgery to last 1-2 hours. She did great going back into the OR, and got to watch Dora on the way.

Surgery Plan

Here is the plan for tomorrow (Monday).

We check into the hospital at 7:30am. Karsie will have some surgery prep and lab work.

At about 9:30am Karsie will have surgery. The plan is for the surgeon to remove the track from the g-tube stoma.

We are not sure how long the surgery will actually take. It took about 1.5 hours to place the g-tube and do the fundoplication, so hopefully not much more than that. He did not anticipate her needing to go to the PICU after. However, he did think she would probably need to be in the hospital for a few days after.

We will do our best to keep things updated here. We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers you have been already offering up on our behalf. We are praying for a smooth surgery, quick recovery, rest, and peace for all of us.

SURGERY!

While it's a necessary evil, it's still an evil. Karsie's button hole is not closing up. At all. So, the only option left really is surgery. Dr. Saenz will open her up at the omphalocele site, cut out the track between her stomach and her skin, and then sew them up separately (that's how we understand it). The hope is that she will eat enough to grow on her own.

Ugh! We're sick with worry but hopeful that everything will be fine. Please keep our Miss Karsie in your prayers on Monday morning.