Surgery day was a success!

Zoey said,"Woohooo!!" when she heard she was getting put back together!  Zoey had a HUGE surgery day and everything was successful!  From start to finish, she had a jejunostomy take down (a.k.a. her intestines were sewn back together), they flushed her gallbladder and did a cholangiogram (flushed out the sludge and put a contrast through it to see if the bile ducts were working right), they took a liver biopsy, they removed her appendix, they inserted a G-tube (tube in her stomach for feeding), placed a port for drainage from her incision sight as it heals to let any infection out, and then closed her back up.  She was put under and intubated for the whole process.  She is still intubated now since they have her on a pretty good dose of fentanyl (pain meds) that are running on a continuous drip at least over night.  Once they feel she's not in pain, they'll lower her fentanyl dose, and extubate her again since the fentanyl makes her too sleepy to breathe on her own.  My parents came to sit with us through the process so besides all the support we had from the rest of our friends and family, it was appreciated that they were able to be there in person for extra support.  We've anxiously awaited this day since Feb 1st when they took her bowels apart as part of her first surgery, but despite that, we were a very different anxious today.  Tonight we can breathe a sigh of relief and we couldn't have asked for a better end result and a more successful day.  The surgeon said everything went very well and that it went about as normal as one can expect.

They will let her bowels heal up and wait for them to "wake up" again since they just stop moving and working for a while after being operated on.  Once the "waking up" happens, they'll start working on feeding again and doing the transition of lowering the tpn while increasing the milk.  The Fellow knows our goal is to get her home by my birthday (May 19) and today he said that was possible and I think he'll help us work for that...but only if Zoey decides that's how things are going to go of course.

Just before we left for dinner and the nurses had gotten her all situated in her bed after surgery, I walked in and she opened her eyes some and just stared into mine as if to tell me she was ok and was going to rest through the night but would be fine.  This gave me an incredible sense of calm and I told her I was proud of her and she's one tough little cookie and just to rest and take it easy through the night because she deserved it.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers throughout all of this but especially on her big surgery days.  Being her fourth surgery, we hope it's her last.  We also hope this will be the last big hurdle we have to make it through before taking her home.  Lots of prayers for quick healing now!