Cole's First Shunt Surgery... A success

Right before I started writing this blog post; I remembered last time at the Ronald Mcdonald House we lost a few posts because of the internet connection and had to start writing them in Word. Thankfully, it was before I started and not right after I lost one.

Last night as things were winding down; we got a knock on the door. We were both a little puzzled as to who it was. It was a father and his 13 year old daughter who has HLHS and has had over seven surgeries by Dr. Spray. She wanted to come in and see Cole. Obviously, we welcomed them in. It was good to see someone who has something way more complicated than Coles’ condition doing so well. She had a pacemaker fail after six weeks of being replaced. She came in on Monday for a new one and was leaving today to go home. It was a very nice reassurance from God that he can do amazing things.

Cole went back to the CPRU around 8 am and went back to anesthesia a little bit after 8:30. Everyone in anesthesia remember Owen. What am I saying… EVERYONE at CHOP remembers Owen. He did pretty good. He only was upset for ten or so minutes at best. We walked him to the elevators and handed him off to anesthesia and we went up to meet with Dr. Spray. He explained to us what he was going to do and that he’d have Cole on the bypass machine during the surgery. We then went back down to the floor and got our stuff out of the room and got a locker to put it in. What a great idea, lockers.

We talked with Dr. Spray after the surgery. He said Coles PA’s are 1/3 of the size they should be and only time will tell if the shunt will help them grow. Cole was only on bypass for eleven minutes. All the nurses always say how fast Dr. Spray is. We didn’t get back to see Cole till after one. As soon as they got him settled in his neighbor came out of surgery. They don’t let parents in the rooms when a child is brought out of surgery. He’s doing great though. He is on morphine for pain and dex-something or other for sedation. His c02 was a little bit high earlier in the day but, when we came back from dinner they had just checked it and it went down some. He seemed to be breathing stronger which probably had something to do with that.

Ashley decided to come back to RMH with me since, Cole won’t be eating tomorrow and is pretty much going to be sleeping all night. This way she can get a good nights’ sleep while she can. Hopefully tomorrow morning Cole will be more awake and we can get him feeding.

Our favorite Doctor is on this weekend. It’s always good to see a face you trust. While we were catching up with her; our GI doctor stopped in. Right after she left we heard Dr. Natarajan’s name over the loudspeaker. She was calling in to check up on Cole…

We asked our GI doctor, “So, does Cole have ALGS? Or is he just a carrier of the gene?” By the original definition he is just a carrier because you have to have cholestasis, facial features, and a heart condition. She said some doctor is working on trying to rewrite the definition and really figure everything out. Interesting little tidbit.
Thanks for the prayers and keep them coming.