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| Waiting on our first plane |
Hey everyone! We have arrived back home from our first trip to our new hospital home. First off I want to extend a big thank you to Mark, Darlene, Jason and Allie Sheets for opening their home to us for 3 days. This is Bart's uncle, aunt and cousins that live in New Jersey. We greatly appreciated the place to stay and enjoyed our visit.
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| Hanging out with Uncle Mark. |
Friday morning we started our day out early waking up at 430 am to head to New York. No problems finding the hospital... thank goodness! The hospital itself is huge but thankfully we only had to learn about the 4th floor (same day surgery floor) for this trip. We passed right through the pre-op with no problems, except for the fact that when Dr. Alam asked to see Gabby walk she refused. We did talk her into walking to the next pre-op room where Dr. Alam did catch a glimpse of her walking. He was very excited and pleased with how staight she was standing. Once she realized that he was watching she froze and wouldn't take another step which amused him. They then gave her a dose of Midazolam to help relax her prior to being put to sleep. This is the first time we have done that and it helped relieve some of the tension prior to the procedure because she was so goofy and silly. She literally had me crying from laughing.
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| silly girl |
She was actually only in the procedure for about 20 minutes. Dr. Alam came out beaming... hallelujah! I always look for his smile when he comes out from procedures because I have seen his worried face and I don't like it at all. He sat down with us in the waiting room, full of nothing but good news. He told us that he was very happy with how her bladder and urethra looked from the last surgery. Dr. Alam said that he was shocked that her pelvis has stayed together, it is expected that the pelvis will split back apart after the bladder closure surgery. He also said that we will NOT have to start cathering her because she is leaking urine as she should instead of holding it up in her bladder in addition he said that he doesn't see any signs of kidney reflux. That is great news because it was a big concern for us being that she has a pelvic kidney. The kidney is pretty much at the same place her bladder is instead of being higher up like yours or mine which could allow for urine to back up into her kidneys. Next on the list of things for Bart and I were to throw all the questions at him that have been rolling around in our heads since we saw him last October when he announced that he was leaving. 1) What is our next step from a urology stand point? answer: to take our time. He said that Gabrielle is still very small so he doesn't to rush into another surgery. The next thing to do would be her bladder augmentation (to make it larger), her body cavity is about the same size as last year so we don't want to over crowd her other organs at this point. We are looking at this step happening in about 2 1/2 years when she is around 7 years old. 2) What should we do about her colostomy? Gabrielle actually asked the other day about reversing her colostomy. Dr. Alam said to downplay it and act like it is no big deal. He did say that after doing some bowel management testing and IF it works that this surgery would happen at the same time as the bladder augmentation. 3) Do you think she will qualify for bowel management? answer: at this point....No. It will be a lot of work to get her stool thick enough and she doesn't have very much colon at this point. 4) How can we prevent overgrowth of E-Coli in her bladder because that is what caused her 2 bladder infections recently? answer: probiotics, Macrodantin antibiotics and lots of fluids. 5) Why do you think that Gabby vomits a few times a month? answer: WHAT? SHE IS VOMITING!!! Yes she randomly vomits from time to time usually in the car or wakes from a dead sleep and vomits until she empties her stomach. Then she is done. He wants to schedule an upper GI to be done locally in Baton Rouge or NOLA. He said that sometimes the colon can flip over backwards causing a problem during digestion. 6) What do you think about her hips protruding? answer: schedule an appointment to see Dr. Accousti in NOLA, her original ortho doctor from birth. 7) What is the plan from here? answer: see ortho, get upper GI both soon. Then in 6 months schedule a ultrasound follow up with him in NYC in 1 year. Our response... ONE YEAR!!!!! WHAT??? This is our first 1 year release she was born... I honestly don't know what to do with myself! Finally after all that was discussed we got to go back and see our princess.
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| sleeping beauty |
She bounced back like a champ and was playing that afternoon. We flew home late yesterday. I have never been so happy to see the lights of New Orleans. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us while we were traveling and also that just follows our journey. Never in my life did I ever think I would get to see NYC even if it was only from the inside of Morgan Stanley Childrens... oh the adventures this little girl has brought her mama and daddy on so far.
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| New Orleans from my airplane window |
