Judah's Surgery; All done!

*Cue big, deep breath and sigh of relief.

Judah's surgery is over and done with.  Little guy did so well during it, he impressed everybody.  As I initially had hoped, none of our worries became truth.  He did well during the surgery, and recovered from anesthesia with no issues.  Yay!

We were pretty sure it was going to be an awful day.  Judah's surgery was scheduled for 10am.  We were suppose to be at the hospital at 8am.  He was not allowed to eat/drink anything after 6am.  We were sure he would be starving and screaming for milk the whole time, so we decided instead of waking him up before 6 to get in a last feeding, we would just let him sleep as long as possible before we had to leave.  We woke him up a little before 7, and left our house very soon afterwards.  Much to our surprise, he did amazingly well for not being able to eat.  He was just a happy little Judah, flashing smiles and laughs at all the nurses and doctors.  Our holding room nurse took him around the halls, showing him off to other nurses because she thought he was so cute.  Right before they took him to surgery the whole team came out to get him to take him back.  Normally, they take the kids back while they are in a crib.  Well, the anesthesiologist thought that Judah was so cute, he just wanted to carry him back.  And so he did.

We were told that the procedure would take 2-3 hours.  They were going to go in, remove the obstruction from the ureter, place a stent and a little drainage tube.  They also said that if the kidney looked absolutely awful and looked like there would be no chance of it developing normally, that they would just go ahead and remove it while they were in there.  They told us that they would call us every hour during the surgery to let us know how it was going.

We watched our little guy get carried down the hall to the operating room, and then we left to go get some breakfast.  After we ate, we went back upstairs to the surgery waiting room, and got our first phone call update from the surgical nurse.  She said everything was going fine!

So while we were sitting in the waiting room, we saw many doctors come out and update the family once the surgery on their child was finished (they also told us that this is what would happen with us).  Well nearing the 2 1/2 hour make of Judah's surgery, the receptionist called us up to the front and said that the doctor would like to talk to us in the consult room.

The consult room?  Why wouldn't he come out here and talk to us like all these other doctors have done so far?  Does that mean something went wrong and they don't want to tell us in front of other people?

Without saying a word to each other, Jeremy and I both knew that we were thinking about all of these things.  We sat in the consult room, with worried looks and shaky hands for what felt like forever.  (I'm sure it was really only like 10 or 15 minutes).

After a little while, the doctor came in with a big smile and awesome news.  They did not end up removing the kidney.  He said Judah did great, the surgery went well and our little man was in the post-anesthesia room, being monitored as he wakes up.  We thanked him, left the room and were soon called to be able to go back and see Judah.

The above picture is what he looked like when we first saw him.  I was glad to see no oxygen on his face, and he was wiggling and stretching, but didn't seem to be in pain.  When we started talking to him, he opened his little eyes and looked at us for a few seconds, before falling back asleep.

We stayed with him in the PACU until we were moved to a room.  We stayed overnight for monitoring.  All his vitals remained stable, he was pretty comfortable and his incision looked good.  We were able to go home the next day. 

Since we've been home, he hasn't been quite as happy.  He's been sleeping a lot, only on me, as he refuses to be laid down anywhere else.  Tylenol seems to be working for his pain, but you can tell he's still a little sore and just doesn't feel good.  He's not eating great and he's got some congestion which makes it hard for him to breathe, but he's not showing any signs of infection or dehydration, which is good.  

It's really sad to see our little guy this pitiful, but It will hopefully be over with in the next few days and he'll be back to himself again.

Judah's Surgery; Tomorrow

Judah's kidney surgery is tomorrow morning at 10:00.

I'm worried and I'm scared.  Probably unnecessarily so, but I am, nonetheless.

I'm worried about how he'll react to anesthesia.  I'm worried about worst-case scenarios.  I'm worried about infection risks.  I'm worried that he will feel alone and scared when we can't be with him immediately before, during and immediately after surgery.  I'm worried about him being in pain afterwards.  

The success rate for this surgery is very high and it's not really a huge deal like say, open heart surgery or brain surgery or anything like that.  I'm thankful for that.  I'm not as worried about the actual surgery as I am anesthesia.  A lot of medical errors happen during surgery and immediately post-operatively.  In children, most medical errors are because of miscalculated medication doses.  I try not to think about this too much. Sometimes I can't decide if being a nurse helps me or hinders me in times like these.

From my personal nursing experience, I have seen both patients that have recovered really well from surgery, and also those who have not.  It's good in the sense that I have first hand experience with the many safety measures that have been put into practice to prevent these things from happening.  But it's also frustrating knowing that errors still do happen.  I know how easy it can be to mess up a medication dose if you are distracted, or overly tired or just not paying close enough attention.  I know what the consequences of those medications errors can result in.  I also know that even if there were no medication errors made, some people just don't react well to general anesthesia.  

I hope this is not the case for our little Judah.

I'm trying not to over think it, over analyze it, or just think too much about it in general.

    

I know that God already has planned for what the outcome will be, and I need to accept that.  Whether it be a good or bad outcome.  

I'm ready for tomorrow (and the next few days) to be over and done with.  

If you can remember, say a little prayer for us tomorrow, for peace.

Thanks.

Judah's Kidney Surgery

First of all, if you're confused and wondering what's wrong with Judah's kidney, read this and this.

We had a renal ultrasound today to see if Judah's hydronephrosis had been resolved.  

Sadly, it has not.  In fact, it has gotten a little bit worse.

Below is a picture of a normal vs. hydronephrotic kidney.

This is obviously not a picture of Judah's kidneys, but it represents what hydronephrosis looks like.  We could see his normal and bad kidney's on the ultrasound, and there was  a very clear difference between the 2.  The bad kidney was extremely large and you could not distinguish any of the little cortexes and medullas like you could in his good kidney.  As soon as the tech put the probe over on his left side and a picture of the bad kidney popped up on the screen, Jeremy and I immediately looked at each other with the same disappointed/scared/sad expression on our faces.  

We knew it hadn't gotten any better, and we knew that that meant surgery for our little guy.

After the ultrasound, we went up to the urology clinic to meet with our urologist to discuss the results.  

He told us what we already knew.  Judah's kidney was still dilated severely, and he did in fact need surgery.  Since Judah's bad kidney still does have some function, they are not going to remove it.  They are going to remove the obstruction that is causing the urine to stay backed up into the kidney (the obstruction is most likely a little kink in his ureter.)  Once the obstruction is removed, our urologist is hopeful that the kidney will then be able to continue to grow and develop in an appropriate way, since there will be no obstruction to hinder that development any longer.  The kidney's function will then be reassessed later in Judah's life (not sure when, but the doc made it seem at least a few years away).  If the kidney still has little to no function at that point, then he will have the kidney removed.  

All that being said, we are not worried about the actual surgery.  It's a kidney.  It's not that big of deal surgery, and he has a second one that is perfect that will compensate just fine.

We are worried about anesthesia.  This is not outpatient surgery.  Judah will be put completely under anesthesia, and this means that he will be on a ventilator to breathe for him.  Some adults don't react well to general anesthesia, and they have fully developed bodies.  We're worried how Judah's little body (and especially lungs) will react to it.  We have lots of reassurance from our doctor, but it's still the main concern that we have.

Judah's surgery is on Monday (the 12th) at noon, and he will most likely have to stay at the hospital for 2 or 3 days.