Sawyer and his surgeries....

February might become known as the month of surgery for Sawyer. We have known since Sawyer was a month old that he would need surgery to correct his Hirschprungs disease but he just had to make it to at least 10 lbs. At the beginning of the month, I took him in for a normal visit with his pediatric surgeon. The visits normally comprised of a five minute conversation asking how the irrigations were going and then we would be sent on our way not before setting up the next appointment because he didn't weigh enough. At that visit, Dr. Hoover took a look at Sawyer's hernias and determined we needed to go ahead and fix those. The original plan was to fix those at the same time as his other surgery but that obviously changed. His appointment was on a Wednesday and they said to come to WakeMed that Monday and they would take care of it. It seemed so fast and I wasn't too big of a fan of him having to have two different surgeries.

The night before his bilateral hernia repair was rough. Sawyer couldn't have anything to eat past midnight that night because his surgery was scheduled for 8:00 that following morning. From 3:00am on was rough. You can't reason with a three month old about why they can't eat. It was very tough when they took him back. I knew he was in good hands. We talked to several people from anesthesia because of my family history (big issues with general anesthesia) so I knew he was going to be monitored but it doesn't matter how many people talk to you, it is hard seeing them take your child away. The procedure took about an hour and he did really well. We had to stay overnight just because of his age but it all went well and his doctor decided to go ahead and do another barium contrast enema (a procedure that had been done on him while he was still in the NICU) just so they could take a look at how much of his colon they would have to remove. At that point, we were going to wait until March to have the pull through procedure. Right before we were discharged, Dr. Hoover let us know that he wanted to go ahead and schedule the procedure in two weeks instead. This would be a lot more involved. We would have to check into the hospital the day before surgery and he would have to be prepped just as if he were going to have a colonoscopy and his stay post surgery would be a couple of days.

 

Waking up from his hernia repair surgery

 

We checked into the hospital on the 10th at 11:00am. They started the medicine referred to as Go Litely because of the effect it has on your bowels. Well I think it works when you don't have issues going to the bathroom like Sawyer did. He ended up having a swollen belly and spitting up a lot because the medicine had no where to go since it was moving through him. We ended up stopping the meds and just irrigating him every couple of hours to clean him out. His surgery started at 12:00 and took about three hours. They ended up removing about 5 inches of his colon which we were told is pretty standard. He had a NG tube down his nose, was hooked up to an IV, and had a catheter and we were waiting to see when he would go to the bathroom. We ended up seeing poop on Tuesday morning. Not to sound like "that mom" but it was extremely exciting to see that because he was never able to do that on his own until now. Going to the bathroom on your own is definitely something that you take for granted. We ended up being able to leave the hospital on Thursday morning.

Waking up after his pull through surgery

 

Not a fan of the NG tube down his nose but can you blame a guy?

 

 A sign posted on his door before you walked in....picture taken and posted because you have to find some humor in all of this wherever you can....

 

Once everything was pulled out and he was allowed to eat, he got a lot happier!

 

Heading home!

Sawyer has been doing great. His surgical sites have healed well and he is going to the bathroom fine with no problems. Our biggest issue is diaper rash which we expected to occur. While I was getting food from the cafeteria one day, I ran into one of our favorite nurses from the NICU. I told her about Sawyer and she was saying how crazy it had been since we left. They had two different kids come in with Hirschprungs but they weren't able to tolerate the irrigates and had to have a temporary colostomy bag put in place. It made me feel so blessed hearing that. Most families don't have to wait as long as we did for their kid to get to 10 lbs so the odds were not stacked in our favor for the irrigations working. This whole experience has been a real game changer in regards to my faith. I have always struggled with taking things to God because I always felt that I should try and take care of it on my own first. But all of these things have been so out of my control and I have had no choice but to step out in faith. We couldn't do a thing to help Sawyer except pray that God would take care of him and he has. This has been quite the journey and fortunately the hard part has ended. We look forward to figuring out what out new "normal" will look like!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last few weeks

These last few weeks have been good but of course, busy as usual. Ainsley has started consistently sleeping from around 9:00 - 4:00 but Sawyer has not jumped on the sleeping bandwagon just yet. He has given me some four hour stretches but doesn't seem to grasp the concept of sleeping more than three hours at a time. I know he will get there eventually.....Both kids are really starting to become more expressive now. Both are smiling and giggling and "talking" now which is really fun to watch. My mom says watching both kids side by side is like watching a tennis match. Back and forth and back and forth trying not to miss what smile or laugh they are going to give us.

On a recent visit to the pediatric surgeon, Sawyer's doctor decided they needed to go ahead and take care of both of his hernias. The original plan was to take care of them when he had his pull through surgery to correct his Hirschprungs but the doctor didn't want to wait. His appointment was on a Wednesday and his surgery was this past Monday morning at 8:00. He did great. Because of his age, we had to spend one night in the hospital for observation. While we were there, they went ahead and did another contrast x-ray on his colon. Upon looking at the x-rays, his doctor decided he wanted to go ahead and schedule his pull through surgery. Originally, he wanted to wait until March to get a little more weight on him but he didn't want to give Sawyer's issues anymore time to get worse. So surgery is scheduled for Monday, February 10th. The surgery should take between two to three hours and it will involve a couple of nights stay in the hospital. While we are nervous about the surgery, we are excited for it to all be over with. Dealing with his issues hasn't been as horrible and time consuming as I originally thought it would be but I am looking forward to not having to schedule an irrigation for him or have Brad go out to buy more saline. In the end, I am glad that he has already had one surgery. I know what to expect for pre-op, what he looks like coming off anesthesia (heart breaking), and what to pack for the hospital. We are trusting in God that everything will go smoothly during surgery and that Sawyer can be healed.

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks with the kids....

 Our tiny man resting up after his surgery. The staff on the pediatric floor were great!

 Headed home from the hospital!

 This kid loves to fix things now. His grandparents got him quite the elaborate tool bench and he routinely likes to "fix things" around the house.

 He attempted to put his pants on by himself....not so effective!

 Me taking the twins to the doctor by myself for the first time. I could have used at least two additional hands but we made it!

He was supposed to be napping. We have learned in the past couple of months that you can't leave anything in his room for him. We also have to close the door to his bathroom and the twins room as well.