The final days

Good morning everyone! After my frustrated post the other day, I really did feel worried that this trip was about to be longer than hoped. Dr. Alam is always extremely cautious. Don’t get me wrong that is appreciated. I mean would you want to operate for 12 hours and then rush the recovery along just to have something go horribly wrong. No, probably not. Apparently, it was discovered during the surgery that Gabby has a large amount of scar tissue that had attached itself to her gallbladder. I believe Dr.Alam told me that a piece of bowel was were the scar tissue originated from. He spent a good amount of time during surgery dissecting the scar tissue to separate the bowel from the gallbladder. Once the surgery was completed one of the worries with giving her fluids or food orally was that the bowel would get overly heavy in one area and cause it to invert and twist. If that were to happen it could be disastrous With possibility of an emergency surgery. So, that was the reason for waiting the extra few days for the bowel to wake and strengthen. When you are in the moment though it is hard listening to your baby cry that their throat hurts and they are hungry. Since that day... she has gotten to drink and then about 12 hours after that food came. Her first pick... PIZZA! 

Since then she has been eating and drinking small amounts. The food is important but not as much as drinking. Her drinking does need to increase but hopefully it won’t hinder us from getting out. I was fully expecting to be in the hospital another 2-3 days but Dr. Alam says that we can be allowed to check out on Sunday... like tomorrow!! We will go back to the hotel and hangout a day or so. She is already scheduled for a follow up appointment at the clinic on Tuesday afternoon. From what we are understanding as long as everything goes well at the appointment then can head home. HOME!! By the time we arrive home Gabby and I will have been gone right at 20 days. She will be coming home with 2 large drains from her new mitrofanoff and her bladder. Bart and I have been trained on how to flush them 2 times daily plus clean the drain sites and the tubes. There will be limitations on what she will be allowed to do the remainder of the summer but we are going to try to make the best of it. We will come back for 3-5 days at the end of July to have the drains pulled and be trained on how to catheter her the new way. Thank you to everyone that has followed us along this journey and all of the others up till now. Keep the prayers coming for us to get out of here and headed home and for no complications while at home the rest of the summer.