JT's NEC surgery

The whole time over in the car, I am freakin out. I do that all the time. Freak out before I get there so that when I get up there I am all freaked out so to speak and have vented everything so that when I get up there I can keep my head and try to listen to and understand what is going on. When we got there we went straight to the NICU. I think I sat and looked in that window watching even though the partitions were up for the whole 2 hours and 5 minutes it took to get him stable. Finally when we were able to go in we had to do that wonderful lovely scrub they make you do. It seemed to take forever. I never knew hand washing was such a task.

The nurse was talking to me the whole time I didn’t hear a word she was saying. Mostly just he is very sick and the surgeon is waiting to talk to us. The only thing I cared about was waiting to make sure he was still breathing. OH boy, he was and they were already prepping him for surgery right there. They gave me a minute to say hi and talk to him. Here began our journey in Dayton Children’s NICU.

I met with the surgeon. He really concerned me because he was southern and seemed to talk and move so slow. I was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to get stuff done fast enough. But, he explained everything. Very well I might add. They were going to make an incision right beside his belly button. They were going in to get all of the necrotic (dead) bowel. He wasn’t sure how much there was in there but, he had a feeling it was going to be a lot and he wasn’t sure if he could save any. He told us that IF he came out of the surgery than he would have a double barrel ostomy. This is where you pull both sides of the bowel out of the body so that the feces can drain into a bag, known as an ostomy bag. Then he said, let’s move now, I don’t want him in pain anymore and the sooner that we get him down there and started the sooner he will be comfortable. I got to walk him down to surgery. Let me tell you that is the scariest walk of all. Every surgery is scary, and is a long walk. It felt like going to the electric chair. You know it is going to happen. You know you have no choice and well, you just have to do it. But, it takes forever. We finally get down there and I talk to the Anesthisologist. He explains to me what they will be using is a paralytic. He will be paralyzed so that he can’t move. Everything will be monitored and the ventilator will be breathing for him. During his last surgery we found out also that it takes a little bit more for Johnathan to be anesthisized than normal because of the morphine that he is on. So, I passed along that information. He said thanks a mom that is informed. I love that. And then in he went. Not before the surgeon came out and told me to go get something to eat this could take a few hours. He said go somewhere off campus get a burger and relax. Ok, right you are going to cut my baby open don’t know if he is going to live or die? And you want me to what???? Relax??? Ok, whatever, but, I was hungry and after just having a c-section, I knew that I needed my protein to keep my energy up. JT’s surgery started at 7:35. We went got something to eat and got back to the hospital in time to get a page saying that he was out of surgery.
We met the surgeon in the waiting room. He said that he had to take a considerable amount out but, he still had a lot left and for right now we have to watch him and monitor him. Otherwise he made it through the surgery great.
Thus, began a ritual. Johnathan had 9 surgeries, after everyone of them, I waited in the hall to watch him leave to go up to the 4th floor. They do surgeries on the 2nd. I would not feel any sort of relief that he came out of it until I seen him being wheeled out and heading up to his space. Michelle who had brought him over who was the respiratory therapist brought him out and slowed down as she passed us so that we could get a look. He looked swollen but, other than that his stats and everything looked really good. We didn’t get in to see him until about 10:00 that night. It seems it always takes a long time to get him stable after a surgery. All I could do was keep looking through the window watching as they worked on him. When I finally got in to see him I was so exhausted. I was just happy to see him. He was still knocked out. They were going to keep him on a morphine drip to keep him out of pain. Even though he was out I talked to him and let him know that I was there. They left the lid to his Giraffe incubator up. The Giraffe is an awesome machine. It comes equipped with a scale so that the baby doesn’t have to be taken out to be weighed. The lid lifts up so that it becomes a warmer. It has a lot of other gadgets on it too. And it is all digital. I got to give him a few more kisses and then I had to leave. That is really hard too, leaving my son in the care of someone else. I didn’t know them, they didn’t know me but, they were going to be the ones taking care of him whether I liked it or not. I felt I knew what it felt like to have Children Services come and rip your child from you and say that you weren’t going to be responsible for them anymore. My heart was hurting more than I could ever explain. It was like someone was ripping it out of my chest. I told him good bye.