4 Weeks Old

Let's start with the important part. Lewis is okay and recovering comfortably after today's surgery. It was a long day for all of us, and we won't know how well things went for a few days, but so far, Lewis is resting and doing fine. The surgery went well, but took a long time.

Jenn and I arrived around 8:30 so we could spend some time with Lewis before he went down to surgery. He was in a great mood and we took some pictures, since he's 4 weeks old today.

Hey ladies. Wink wink.

We got to go with the nurses who wheeled Lewis down to the operating room around 9:15AM. Lewis enjoyed the ride, slept peacefully the whole way. When we got down there, they put us all in a staging area for the OR. At that point we realized that we were the only ones in this huge area who weren't either medical staff or patients. It was like visiting the Smurfs village - dozens of people in blue scrubs running everywhere with great urgency in this big, subdivided, underground room. Very surreal. If that wasn't enough, the Anesthesiologist came in. Her name is Dr. Happe, pronounced "happy". Really. She asked us a ton of questions while she went through Lewis' medical records, but she didn't laugh when we made fun of her name. After about 45 minutes, they wheeled a still sleeping Lewis into the OR and sent us on our way.

At 11:15, they called to let us know the prep was done and they were starting surgery. Lewis got back up to the NICU a little bit after 5 pm, so the surgery took a couple of hours longer than expected. Most of the extra time was because the surgeon didn't feel good about the initial g-tube placement, he called a gastrointeroligist to check the position. It turned out that the g-tube wasn't in the stomach correctly and had to be re-inserted. We're very lucky that the surgeon was that thorough.

The doctors had explained the procedure to us in great detail, but somehow we weren't really ready to see Lewis immediately post-op. They made only 4 small incisions, well under an inch each. One for the g-tube, one for the scope, two for the tools, I think. Still, 4, half-inch incisions on your 1 month old is a lot to handle, when he's also on a ventilator and two IVs. We're assured he is comfortable. He's sedated, so that he doesn't mess with the breathing machine or the IVs, and on painkillers, so he's not hurting. He's also strong - they said he could do without the respiratory support right away, but the anesthesiologists want it kept in there as a precaution for 24 to 48 hours.

The surgeon found evidence of pretty bad esophagitis (heartburn), which may explain how fussy Lewis was. If the surgery is successful, it will really help that. On Monday, they'll do some tests to make sure the g-tube is in properly and start ramping up his feeds. 'Till then, we just try to keep him comfortable.

Sorry for the long post, it was a long day. Thanks so much for all of your support.