Jeshua vs. Hirschsprung's, round 2

The fateful week of Jeshua's last surgery is here. The past 8 weeks have been good as we've become pros at colostomy care. When I say "we", I really mean Melissa. After several days of colostomy blow-outs, Melissa and I were able to coax the gasket into lasting 48+ hrs, allowing us to remove it intentionally instead of waiting for an explosion. Aaron and Leah have been great, and Jesh is down to waking once most nights, twice on occasion, and even sleeping through the entire night a time or two!

We checked into the hospital Thursday (yesterday) morning at 8am. The surgery isn't until today (Friday), however they wanted to bring him in 24 hours early to clear out his bowels and get some baseline vitals etc. Aaron and Leah went to Grandma's house early Thursday morning. They were so excited when Grandma picked them up! We've tried explaining whats happening, but when we'd get to the part about ".....and you'll stay with Grandma for two nights..." we lost them every time.

Throughout the day Thursday, they allowed Jesh to drink only electrolyte water. The water kept him somewhat content throughout the day, despite our worries that he'd be starving and grumpy. They gave him a naso-gastric tube for only a couple of hours to administer the laxative orally. It is horrible tasting stuff they know a baby would never voluntarily drink. And boy did it work (imagine putting a small colostomy bag over a howitzer...yes, we had blow-outs)!! Melissa and I took turns holding Jesh throughout the day. Besides being bored out of our minds, the day went fine and was rather uneventful. I returned home to sleep while Melissa slept on a roll away bed in Jesh's room (neither of us really got more than a few hours of sleep).

Dr. Fisher is the primary pediatric surgeon here at Deaconess, however he brought in a partner who will be spending the next couple of years working with him here. The partner arrived yesterday from Tacoma. Because of the complexity of the surgery, Dr. Fisher opted to wait until the second surgeon arrived, otherwise we'd probably have had the procedure done a few weeks ago. The surgery will begin around 9am (1 hour from now) and is called an endorectal pullthrough. The incision they made for his colostomy is about one inch wide, and they will expand that across his little tummy a few inches to give them room to work. Without going into details of the surgery (googling "endorectal pullthrough" returns several results), it's expected to take them about 3 to 4 hours to complete, after which they hope to stitch him up and send him back to us here in the Neonatal ICU. Jeshua is sleeping right now in Melissa's arms, which is surprising as he hasn't eaten since 5am. The surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologist, etc have paraded through the room already ensuring that we fully understand what to expect, and giving us yet another opportunity to ask questions. Even through they've asked us for months if we have any questions, we always seem to find one more to ask. They'll return in about 30-45 minutes to put him on the ventilator and sedate him. Melissa and I will remain in the NICU room during the surgery, and are told to expect calls every 45 minutes with updates on how things are going. Lots of prayers and I'm sure a few tears, and we'll see our little baby in a few hours.