Day 123

Well, we're still hanging on in here. A huge thank you to my aunt Cheri, who has been updating the blog. It was such a relief to not have to worry about keeping everyone up to date, and we so appreciate it! Yesterday went pretty well overall. Trent's mom, stepdad and dad came up, along with my cousins. We had a great support system here for us, and we are so grateful-as always- for the blessings in our lives.

I spent the morning packing up the tons of junk we had stuffed in our little room. Our car is now FULL. (How do we manage to collect so much in here??) We had planned on bringing the essentials down to his room in the ICU, but they are out of beds down here so he was put in a room they call the fishbowl. We couldn't find space for our things in here, so all of that's in the car as well now. Our room is not so much a room as a storage closet, but we're just thankful that they found a place for him. Back to the point...

The surgeon was running a little behind, then the anesthesiologist was running behind. They didn't end up getting started until after 4pm. Once Holden was in the room though, everything went by quickly. His surgeon is one of the best out there, and we were confident in his abilities. He came out to tell us that the surgery went really well. They were able to successfully correct the malrotation, take his appendix out and place the gtube with no issues. (On a side note, he did find a Ladd's band, which is a band of tissue that connects the intestines to the intestinal wall, creating an obstruction in the duodenum. We never saw the band in any of the tests or scans, so it's fortunate that we did the surgery now becasue the band can cause vomiting and other issues. We're not sure if that was contributing to his being sick all the time, but it certainly wasn't helping either. Between that being fixed and the gtube being placed, I pray his vomiting is a thing of the past.)

After his surgery, we were able to come in and see him. Even though we were prepared for what he'd look like, it was still so hard to see him with all of the lines and tubes coming out of him. The smell almost knocked me over, it brought back so many memories. There's a specific smell associated with kids who are intubated, like a combination of the tape and tubes and plastic... I didn't realize before how much I had associated with that smell. Anyway, he was as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, and we had nowhere to sleep in the fishbowl room, so Trent and I spent the night with my cousins Jack and Jennifer. (Not only do they live close to the hospital, they were willing to give up their own sleep so they could feed us and give us a home for the night. We are so grateful!) We left Holden here in the capable hands of Dave, our favorite night nurse, who called us with updates. He had to give Holden quite a few extra doses of pain meds overnight just to keep him comfortable, but otherwise he had a decent and stable night.

He seems to be pretty uncomfortable and in a lot of pain this morning. They've cut off his Fentanyl in preparation for extubation, and that didn't help much. His chest xray looked a little hazy this morning- not horrible, but not what I wanted to see either. They've upped his diuretics a little bit, and I'm praying hard that we don't have any issues there. Hopefully he'll be a little more comfortable when we get the breathing tube out, but we're still looking at a rough couple of days for the little man.

We are so touched and immeasurably grateful for the many, many prayers. We would appreciate your continued prayers over the next few days for Holden's comfort, healing and peace. He's not out of the woods yet, and he won't be until we get him successfully extubated. The next 24 hours are still going to be touch and go, but he's a tough little man. This kid is a superhero, and I couldn't be more proud of him. He's got this. :)