Surgery Day

Today was Jeshua's colostomy surgery. A few minutes before 8am, we went to hold him one last time before the surgery. He had a great night free of sedatives and was awake and alert. Mommy and Daddy loved on him with teary eyes until they came to take him at 9am. The NICU doctors and nurses are very good, and the 30 minutes leading up to the surgery was a parade of anesthesiologists, neonatologists, surgeons, infant care nurses, and others who were to be present in the room during the operation - 8 in total! They were all very considerate and patient as they explained further details of the anesthesia, surgery, and recovery, and responded in detail to our many questions. We finally gave him up and went to the waiting room. After an hour, the anastesiologist came out and informed us that he'd responded perfectly and was quietly sleeping through the procedure. An hour later, we had quite a fright when the fire alarm started sounding throughout the hospital! After a moment of panic, the staff informed us that it was simply a fire drill which was quickly silenced.

Shortly before noon, the surgeon emerged from the operating room and told us that everything had gone splendidly. They had found the "cut-off" where the nerve cells ended and the Hirschsprung's began and had performed the colostomy at that point. After Jeshua's next surgery, he will be missing the last 20-25% of his colon, which is considered a textbook Hirshsprung's and positions him for a full and complete recovery.

We were so releived to have the surgery over and done with. After waiting another 20 minutes for the nurses to clean up Jesh's tummy and return him to the NICU nursery, we went back to find our baby looking great! He was completely asleep, still under the effects of the anesthesia, but the ventilator had already been removed and he was neatly swattled looking very peaceful. Prior to surgery, we had been prepped for him to remain on the ventilator for possibly 2 or 3 days while his body "woke up" from the anesthesia. However, he has such strong respiratory and cardiac systems that they were able to pull him off the ventilator almost right away and leave him on a very minor dose of constant pain medication.

Doctors say they'll test out his digestive track with some pedialyte clear fluids Sunday, and possibly start him on diluted breast milk on Monday! If Jesh can muscle through his recovery, we might be able to bring him home next weekend.