For the past week, Sadbh has been so excited
about having her stoma closed up. Every morning she wakes up and counts down
the number of days until her surgery.
Yesterday am, Sadbh said to Katie, “Mom, I know
you love my stoma, but I’m sorry, today is the last day you are going to see
it”.
Sadbh was the first one out of bed this morning
and she could not wait to get to the hospital to take care of business.
Despite her excitement Sadbh was in a very
serious mood. Dr. Inglis was quick to get a smile out of her and soon he was
explaining the procedure with us.
The surgery went well and once she came to,
over an hour later, she was wheeled into her room for recovery.
She was still very much out of it and was not a
bit pleased to have her IV still in her hand.
We were able to convince her to leave the IV
where it was and soon she was sipping on an ice pop and drinking water.
Unfortunately her stomach was tender due to the
morphine so all that water and cherry Popsicle came up soon afterwards.
She snoozed for the next couple of hours and
later she felt much better and thankfully her appetite returned in full force.
Dr. Inglis was very satisfied with the outcome
of Sadbh’s surgery. Her airway is and will always be restricted however the
purpose of the surgery is to close up her stoma in her neck eliminating the
risk of infection and it will allow her to lead a fairly normal life.
Recovery should take between 10 days and a
couple of weeks so we are going to keep Sadbh home from school for another week
or so.
The procedure today was to close up the trachea
on the inside and then, loosely, close the skin on the outside. This method
will reduce the risk of air getting trapped or infection developing between her
airway and the skin. If the outer section was tightly closed up and there
happened to be leakage on the inside layer it could be very serious and life
threatening. Thankfully, Dr. Inglis has experience in this procedure and he was
very confident that his method would minimize any risk. Again, we feel so very
fortunate to be near Seattle Children's Hospital and in the best of care with
Dr. Inglis.
All the best,
Wayne, Katie, Sadbh and Cillian
No comments:
Post a Comment