a view inside

Ellie had her endoscopy study done this afternoon and it went off without any significant difficulties.

This was our first time doing day surgery and we were scheduled for a 1 PM slot on the operating room (endoscopy involves anesthesia so it happens in the OR even though there isn't any cutting). We followed the rules and stopped her Elecare at midnight and gave her just a tiny bit of pedialyte to get through the morning before arriving at Children's around 11:30 as they had asked us to be there 90 minutes ahead of time for pre-op activities.

1 o'clock came and went. Ellie was happy as could be even though her belly was empty and she was confined to a small space.

2 o' clock came and went. Happy Ellie watched some TV and had great fun changing channels on the tiny TV at the bedside.

3 o' clock we got an update that the 'case' ahead of us in the OR was running over because of complications and that is shouldn't be that much longer. Ellie continued to be an angel while Abby and I got progressively more hungry because of course with Ellie fasting we couldn't eat either. But how could I complain that someone else's kids surgery was complicated? All I could think was how much it must suck to have your kid in the OR for too long.....

Finally as the Pre-Op room was getting very lonely, Ellie was wheeled in to the OR and put under around 4:30.

At about 6 we met with ther GI doctor who did the endoscopy and he told us that there wasn't a whole lot to report. From above, things look normal- esophagus, stomach, etc. When her went in through her ostomy things looked good as well without any signs of disease,infection or injury. What was interesting was that even with a the best scope that they have, he couldn't find the 'chimney' that connects her colon to her small bowel near her ostomy until he was almost done and investigated a tiny wrinkle in her small bowel where her found the opening to her colon. No wonder nothing is going down and a lot is coming out her ostomy- the hole for things to go down has almost closed as her small bowel has come down in diameter. Just what we had suspected to be the case her ostomy did its job but in the course of bringing down the size of her bowel it had changed the original set up.

So now we wait to hear what Dr. Jennings thinks and make a plan for the next step. He was in the OR today watching the whole thing so he already knows what is going on. There is little doubt that her anastomosis (connection site) needs adjustment but the question is what adjustment do we do and how does that play into the overall plan. We will probably talk next week about where to go from here.

Ellie recovered nicely from her anesthesia after an hour or so of watching her new pink DVD player in the recovery room. Somehow Barney made her feel much better than either Abby or I could. Great. A damed purple dinosaur is better than mom or dad.....

We hooked her up to her nights infusion while we were still int he recovery room and headed home. Ellie was asleep in her own crib by 9 PM.

We are expecting a few bumpy days as she recovers from this 'minimally invasive' day but overall we expect her to bounce back pretty quickly.

If her blowing kisses and giving high fives to the nurses as we left the recovery room is any indication we should be just fine..