Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The good, the bad, and the hopeful

Well it started as a good weekend. Last Saturday Chrissy and Eddie spent the day at the hospital with Allison. Mammy (Eddie's mom) even stopped by to see her briefly. They got to hold and play with her a bit and even gave her another bath. Then she got dressed in a cute little strawberry nightgown with matching boots and hat. Some pictures below of the day and then the story continues...

No pictures, please! I need my rest




Cute little strawberry outfit

Mommy's got me

Strawberry giving mommy a raspberry



Just checking out the world

The next day Eddie went to cousin Ashley's 2nd birthday party while Chrissy's friends threw her a baby shower at our house. Lots of people came with wonderful food and presents and Husky decorations. A few stayed late to clean up and have a drink and talk. Once everyone was gone though, things took a turn for the worse.

The doctors at Evergreen Hospital called and said Allison had troubles Saturday night and Sunday. After consulting with the doctors at Swedish they determined she needed to have some tests done to see if any damage occurred from the NEC she had back in February. So they wanted to transfer her to Swedish on First Hill in the morning.

She was moved via ambulance and Chrissy followed. Eddie was having stitches removed from a recent surgery and had to meet them down there. Once there they got her settled in she was prepped for her test. If you don't want to know all the details you can skip ahead but here is what the problem is. NEC has a possible side effect of causing strictures or scarring in the intestines. If the strictures are large enough they can block passage of the waste she produces and can back up. In order to see if there are strictures they have to perform a barium contrast test. Basically a barium liquid is deposited up her bum and they take a series of x-rays to watch where it goes. The contrast in the x-ray will show the size and shape of her bowels to see if it flows uninterrupted or if there are points where it narrows. Those would be strictures and would have to be removed. 

Back to Allison. Her test showed at least one stricture, large enough that the doctor estimates it closed off about 90-95% of her flow. There is another point wich is also a possible stricture but the test was inconclusive. However they will definitely have to have surgery for the first and will be able to examine the second more closely while they are in there to determine what to do about it.

So now on to the surgery. What they will be doing is cutting out the section of intestine where the stricture is and sewing the two healthy ends together. There are possibilities of leakage where they are connected or more scarring to occur while its healing as side effects. Also if there is a second stricture they might remove that at the same time or wait to do the same surgery again later when she is recovered some. This will be whatever the doctors determine is the best course while they are operating. The procedure is happening tomorrow, Mar 28th at 7:30 am and should last a couple hours. We are both hopeful that this will take care of all the problems she has been going through and will make her much more comfortable in the end. We are also praying this will be the only surgery she needs and is as quick and painless as possible. I understand we have people as far north as Canada praying for us and we appreciate it all including all the notes, texts, facebook messages, cards, carrier pigeons, skywriting, and subliminal messages that have been sent our way. It's helpful in these times to know what great family and friends we have by our side. We will probably call immediate family after we know the outcome and maybe a quick post on facebook. I will update the blog later tomorrow hopefully.


Just some interesting Allison info: Today, March 27th was Allison's original delivery date. So she is full term today. Also tonight she weighed in at 6lbs 2oz. What a big, strong girl! She is SOOO going to kick this NEC's ass!

1 comment:

  1. You also have people as far south as Mexico praying for all of you.

    Erlin & Jenn

    ReplyDelete