Tuesday, June 9, 2015

A long 12 hours for little man


Shea reported in for surgery at 6 am monday.  He was very nervous and anxious about the whole ordeal, but knowing that presents would be in the near future helped him find a silver lining.

They did let me go back to the OR with him until he went off to sleep at 7:40.  An initial stall occurred as he spent the first two and a half hours under anesthesia while the team combated problems with inserting, iv's, arterial lines etc.

The incision was made at 10:06.  Dr Sanders worked meticulously on shea until 8 pm monday night. Little Man was in surgery for just over 12 hours, with about 10 of that being the spinal ortho work.

A few reasons the surgery doubled in time from initial estimates:
-  Dr Sanders discovered the deformed portions of vertebrae he needed to remove were more cartilage like than bone like, and removing it was more risky and time consuming.
-  When an ideal full alignment correction was made Shea's spinal cord would lose electric signal to his lower body (likely because his cord has never been completely straight and doing so caused too much stretch or tension on the nerve fibers)  It was decided that some amount of curvature would be left to keep the spinal cord functioning well.  Dr S reports he is still very happy with the new position of the spine, and the integrity of the fusion

Shea was in recovery until 1130 pm, and then transferred to the PICU.  His pain is under pretty good control, and for the most part his vitals are quite stable.  His neuro checks are still good.

It looks like there is a chance his back brace won't be ready until tomorrow because of how very late it was last night after surgery when he could finally be measured for it.  Fingers crossed... if it did come today he could start to sit up and be visited by PT,... and that would help get bowels and internal "stuff" ( vague highly technical term) moving better and help with pressure relief/skin integrity, but for now we are still allowed to re position him from left to right side lying every 2 hours.

For today, he will be allowed to start liquids, juice etc, and hopefully the arterial line can be removed. Everything else will likely stay put for now.

Thank you a million times over for all the cover we have had in prayer.   I am so pleased with how well he's doing so far.






5 comments:

  1. Oh Liz... I can only imagine the stress. *hugs* to all. I hope they can continue to keep him very comfortable as I'm sure it will be a long recovery. Praying.

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  2. Hugs love and prayers being sent your way

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  3. Praying for a problem free healing for Shea. That all the future Pt and all would go smoothly and well. God's strength and blessing on all your family.

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  4. Poor little guy. Praying !!!!

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  5. Thank you for the update. Prayers and thoughts coming your way!

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