Lauren is still on for tomorrow's surgery, and everything is ready. She is being transfused with two units of blood. As of midnight she will be "N.P.O." (nothing by mouth) status. The next time she will be allowed to swallow anything is when her bowels have started to work again. The operating room is booked for 1 hr from 9-10AM, but she might actually go a little earlier since Dr. Bufo is doing another case just before Lauren's. They will sedate her and intubate her in the NICU and then transport her to the OR in a transport incubator.
The nurses say that most kids can go home after this kind of surgery anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks after... Be patient Lauren, you'll be home soon....
01/16/02 11:00AM:
Lauren was taken to surgery at 8:30AM, and Dr. Bufo told us that the surgery would take anywhere from 45 minutes to over 2 hours depending on the amount of adhesions he found. Adhesions can be dangerous because a large amount can limit the motility of the intestinal tract and can even cause obstructions. Lauren was out of surgery by 10:00AM and everyhing went as well as can be expected. Dr. Bufo was able to successfully re-anastamose (reconnect) her small bowel and says he found a moderate amout of adhesions which he took care of. He also said that he was able to see her tiny appendix at some point during the surgery and he went ahead and took it out. The appendix is a vestigial organ and the only thing that it can do is get swollen later in life. Now Baby Lauren can never get appendicitis!!! Those of you that want to send thank you cards to Dr. Bufo can send them to the following address (make sure you tell him you "know" him from the web site):
Dr. Anthony Bufo
St. Mary's Trauma Department
901 45th Street
West Palm Beach, FL 33407
01/16/02 11:00PM:
Baby Lauren is doing well after her surgery. The plan was to leave her intubated and on the vent overnight so they could give her some strong pain control and then wean her off the vent tomorrow. Baby Lauren had different plans. This afternoon she reached up, grabbed the breathing tube, and yanked it out along with the gastric tube they put in. She was breathing so well that they left her extubated, but they had to put the gastric tube back in. Since then she has pulled the gastric tube out again, and she almost did so a third time while Daddy was there tonight. She is somewhat sedated, but only enough to make it very easy for her to sleep. She winces and cries when she moves her legs up, so she is feeling some degree of pain. They cannot give her any higher doses of pain killers bacuase that might get in the way of her breathing. Her surgical wound looks good, with minimal swelling and only a small amout of bleeding. The gastric tube has to stay in until there is no more bile coming from the stomach. That is a sign that instead of going back up into the stomach, the bile is headed down into the intestines, and it can only do that when the bowels starts to work again. They put her on triple antibiotics for three days to reduce the chances of post-surgical infection, and she will probably be started on intravenous feedings sometime tomorrow so her weigh loss won't be too great. We are looking forward to a speedy recovery and a quick (first) trip home for Lauren...
01/17/02 10:00 PM:
Lauren is up to 4 lbs, 8.8 oz tonight. She had dropped to 4 lbs, 6.4 oz prior to surgery. Dr. Bufo has looked at the surgical wound several times since the surgery and says that he is very happy at how it looks. There was minimal bleeding after the surgery and Lauren seems to be tolerating the discomfort pretty well. There is still quite a bit of bile coming from the gastric tube and there are no bowel sounds yet to indicate that her gut has started working again. She is now on intravenous feedings again at a moderate rate since she can't have anything to eat yet. She is not on any supplemental oxygen. She had an EKG done this morning and it showed no irregularities. Good job, Baby Lauren!!!