Fourth Surgery
Yesterday, Jameson was added to the surgery schedule as an add-on for his 4th surgery. At about 5:30 p.m. we made our way down to surgery. It's a pretty simple and a fairly routine surgery. The surgery lasted for about an hour. He received a Gastrostomy Tube (G-Tube) and a Nissen Fundoplication. The surgery was successful and we're just waiting for him to heal. Recovery is expected to be 5 to 7 days. Once he can show his doctors that he can tolerate his food and gain weight, we can take him home!
Day 1 thru 75 (today)
Matty and I decided to create this blog to give our friends and family the opportunity to know exactly what is, and has been going on with Jameson.
Jameson was born 6 weeks early with part of his intestines coming out of his abdominal cavity, similar to a hernia only completely on the outside of his stomach. Two hours after birth, he was rushed off to Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital at Stanford to await surgery. At two days old he went in for his first surgery. The surgeons removed 6cm of the illiem section of his small intestines, and put them all back into his abdominal cavity. He recovered really well, but was having trouble passing stool and tolerating feedings. About 3 weeks later, the surgeons decided to do exploratory surgery to see if they could find what was causing the problem. When re-examining the area of his original surgery, they found a small hole where stool was leaking out. He was placed on antibiotics for 14 days to cure the infection resulting from the leakage. He progressed very quickly after, tolerating his feedings and passing stools, but started having to work harder to breathe. He has what is called Stridor, basically an underdeveloped airway. In his case they needed to go in and remove some of the extra tissue that was causing a small blockage in his airway and making him work hard to breathe. Almost immediately following this surgery he was breathing easier, but then he caught a cold virus. With his throat healing from the surgery, the subsequent cough from this virus was a big wrench in his recovery. The cough also made it harder for him to take a bottle, and caused him to spit up more than he should have been. When the cough went away he was still having trouble taking a bottle so he had a barium swallow study. Which is where they put an x-ray dye into his milk and while he is swallowing take a bunch of x-rays. During this study they found that his problem was stemming from a really bad acid reflux. They decided that he would need to get a feeding tube inserted directly into his stomach as well as tighten up his esophogus to minimize his reflux. And that brings us up to where we are now. Waiting for the surgery to insert this feeding tube. Since his surgery is not emergency, and since he is doing really well right now, he is not considered a high priority operation. So he keeps getting pushed back until they have time to get him in the operating room. Once he gets the operation, if all goes well as they think it will since it is a fairly common operation, he will have 3-5 days of recovery, then a couple more days to make sure everything is functioning properly, then he will be coming home. It may be that he has the tube in until he moves on to solid foods. We will be working everyday on taking the bottle and he may grow out of the reflux and have the tube removed earlier. He just needs to be able to take a whole feeding through a bottle and keep it all down. Developmentally he is right on track and doing most of the things a full term 10 week old would do. Smiling, recognizing our voices and tracking us with his eyes, supporting his head more and more each day, and even giggled. They say that he may a little behind on some things, due to being 6 weeks early and also because he will have spent the first 3 months of his life in a hospital, but he will catch up over time. There should be no long term effects from anything that he has been through.
Now that we are caught up, we will try to update at least weekly. We want to thank everybody for their love, kind thoughts, prayers and just being there to help us through this long process. We can't wait for you all to meet our little man. Love you all, until next time...
Jameson was born 6 weeks early with part of his intestines coming out of his abdominal cavity, similar to a hernia only completely on the outside of his stomach. Two hours after birth, he was rushed off to Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital at Stanford to await surgery. At two days old he went in for his first surgery. The surgeons removed 6cm of the illiem section of his small intestines, and put them all back into his abdominal cavity. He recovered really well, but was having trouble passing stool and tolerating feedings. About 3 weeks later, the surgeons decided to do exploratory surgery to see if they could find what was causing the problem. When re-examining the area of his original surgery, they found a small hole where stool was leaking out. He was placed on antibiotics for 14 days to cure the infection resulting from the leakage. He progressed very quickly after, tolerating his feedings and passing stools, but started having to work harder to breathe. He has what is called Stridor, basically an underdeveloped airway. In his case they needed to go in and remove some of the extra tissue that was causing a small blockage in his airway and making him work hard to breathe. Almost immediately following this surgery he was breathing easier, but then he caught a cold virus. With his throat healing from the surgery, the subsequent cough from this virus was a big wrench in his recovery. The cough also made it harder for him to take a bottle, and caused him to spit up more than he should have been. When the cough went away he was still having trouble taking a bottle so he had a barium swallow study. Which is where they put an x-ray dye into his milk and while he is swallowing take a bunch of x-rays. During this study they found that his problem was stemming from a really bad acid reflux. They decided that he would need to get a feeding tube inserted directly into his stomach as well as tighten up his esophogus to minimize his reflux. And that brings us up to where we are now. Waiting for the surgery to insert this feeding tube. Since his surgery is not emergency, and since he is doing really well right now, he is not considered a high priority operation. So he keeps getting pushed back until they have time to get him in the operating room. Once he gets the operation, if all goes well as they think it will since it is a fairly common operation, he will have 3-5 days of recovery, then a couple more days to make sure everything is functioning properly, then he will be coming home. It may be that he has the tube in until he moves on to solid foods. We will be working everyday on taking the bottle and he may grow out of the reflux and have the tube removed earlier. He just needs to be able to take a whole feeding through a bottle and keep it all down. Developmentally he is right on track and doing most of the things a full term 10 week old would do. Smiling, recognizing our voices and tracking us with his eyes, supporting his head more and more each day, and even giggled. They say that he may a little behind on some things, due to being 6 weeks early and also because he will have spent the first 3 months of his life in a hospital, but he will catch up over time. There should be no long term effects from anything that he has been through.
Now that we are caught up, we will try to update at least weekly. We want to thank everybody for their love, kind thoughts, prayers and just being there to help us through this long process. We can't wait for you all to meet our little man. Love you all, until next time...
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