Zoey's surgery was a success!!!

This afternoon at around 12:30 Zoey was taken from the NICU to the 1st floor operating rooms of St Mary's for her FINALLY decided on exploratory surgery.  Sally, myself, Allen, & Krista anxiously sat in the waiting room trying to distract ourselves with reading the paper, playing Wheel of Fortune on my iPad, watching TV, reading books, whatever we could do to pass the time till we found out the the outcome, good or bad.  At around 2:45 Sally & I were paged to meet with Zoey's surgeon.  We went into a private room & waited nervously for the news.  Her surgeon came in & immediately stated, "everything went fine," which for me, felt like it lifted off the weight of the world, I'm sure Sally felt something similar.  He then digressed into the explanation of what did/didn't do during the surgery.  He performed a jejunostomy procedure, which he explained was very rare & something he had only performed 2 or 3 times previous in his career.  Essentially her intestines were patched where they were at their weakest & "unkinked" the area where the small intestine was so infected by NEC and therefore had folded upon itself & created an abscess obstruction.  There's a lot more to it than this but we'll be keeping that to ourselves at this time.  What's important is that it was a success, & while the road from here is long & possibly very winding, it's progress & as of right now she looks SO MUCH BETTER & is very content.  We can tell she's so much more comfortable, drugs or not, and are happy we pushed as advocates for her to have the surgery today.  The surgeon agreed that it was probably good we did surgery today as waiting would not have helped her or her condition at all.

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Baptism Pictures

 Here are the pictures from Zoey's baptism on 1/31/13 done by Pastor Tyler from St Pauls in Osseo, MN

Waiting room thoughts

I can now definitively say that waiting for major & invasive surgery on my barely over 3 week child is positively the most unique experience I can remember.  Fear, excitement, trepidation, sorrow, euphoria, love, you name it, I probably feel it.  Knowing that our little, LITTLE, girl is getting something so incredible done right now is beyond words.  Sitting in the little kids family waiting room watching a movie in pure exhaustion & the most anxious feeling I've ever experienced.

What a morning

Met with Zoeys actual surgeon for the first time this morning a little after 730.  Once again, opinions varied & inconsistencies from what we were told earlier this week & by his own residents.  He seemed to think that there were improvements, despite all of her levels being artificially kept up.  My thought process was that you can keep most things "okay" with enough help, doesn't mean It's getting any better, along with similar opinion from the NICU doctors.  His demeanor towards the "situation" didn't go over well with either of us so at the end of the conversation I asked for a second opinion from the department chair. That went over like a fart in church with him & his team quickly left.

About 20 minutes ago the Neo-natal department chair sat down with us & shared a conversation with Zoey's surgeon.  That conversation then revealed that Zoey WILL be having exploratory surgery this afternoon to figure out what is going on EXACTLY on. 

I requested that Zoey's surgeon come back up & we talk it out, 1on1.  He did & we started over & things went very well.

So, Zoey is a go sometime this afternoon & we are at the mercy of the OR schedule.  So, good, bad, or indifferent we will finally have some answers & direction. 

Krista & Allen have come down for much needed support.

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Whole lot of waiting & a moment of sheer happiness

Another day of questions & little answers. Getting a few different answers & comments, & guessing for all intents & purposes. Had to vent this evening to the neo-natal head again which resulted in even more second-guessing. Surgeons want to wait, NICU wants to proceed to surgery, surgery residents aren't sure exactly what head surgeon wants to do, still haven't met the head surgeon. Not impressed with the past 2 days. Which I, of course, made people aware of & resulted in a quality representative come see us which our nurse had never seen so that was interesting. In mid typing the NICU charge resident called & said she is not on the official surgery list for tomorrow completely different story from Wednesday as we were told if it was status quo for her levels she'd be going. With that being said her surgeon may completely flip his mind tomorrow after seeing her for what will be the 7th day of only having okay levels by massive amounts of help from the drugs/supplements. It's not that we want surgery by any means on our little girl, however this course of poor & inconsistent communication is beyond tiresome. SO, as of now we get to flip a coin in the morning on what we are doing. I know many people want updates but once again, our schedule, it'll be posted when it gets posted.

Our moment of happiness & joy was when Pastor Tyler from Sally's childhood church, who married us, came down & gave Zoey her baptism in the event this surgery goes down or if anything should happen. It was a really special moment for Sally & I as it brought things to a calm & centered state amid all this craziness. We can't say enough how important it was to us to get this done & and the compassion & sincerity of Pastor Tyler in his willingness to come at a moments notice to visit, to talk, to give a prayer, whatever we needed. Beyond words how much it meant. Got some really great pictures...............but it was a crazy day & I forgot the memory card at the NICU.........tbpl (to be posted later (pretty sure I just made that up))


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Evening update

Alright so here we go. Zoey is still on a holding pattern. Belly is more distended, levels are all artificially being kept acceptable by drugs, machines, & a lot of help from the nurses & doctors. Not sure if it's full blown NEC or an abscess or blockage, however it's some version of NEC & complications from it. Head Natal Doc discussed with us this afternoon that she was in a status of 3 different outcomes. 1, she gets better by herself, not likely per the doctor. 2, she needs emergency surgery by a perforation or xrays get worse, which for all intents & purposes, are, as gas is not moving to her lower bowels so it's not coming out, and she's no longer stooling on top of that. 3, we go into surgery Friday, which is the most likely scenario. So we just wait, we see what happens, & we hope for the best. While tough we have some awesome nurses that are keeping things as loose as possible & providing quite a bit of levity. Sally & I need to get out of the NICU as our, specifically mine, stress level is elevated. On a lighter note, Zoey is 3 weeks old today, good job little peanut, you keep plugging on.

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Holding pattern

Zoey got a bit worse overnight with her stats however the xrays aren't showing any definitive results, any more positive or negative.  The surgeons don't appear comfortable quite yet doing essentially an exploratory surgery.  So we are waiting, waiting, & waiting.  Her belly is more distended & her levels are all barely stable due to all the stuff being pumped in.  So, hanging on & out.