Tuesday, June 11, 2013

In the PICU


What a day. The good news is that he made it through the surgery and he is stable...now. Thank you to everyone for your good thoughts and prayers. They were felt!

Ready for Surgery
Cooper charmed every nurse and doctor that we saw before the surgery. They let Ryan and me go back to the Operating Room with him until he fell asleep. He never cried or even fussed once. Such a trooper! His surgery lasted about 4 hours and we got an update every hour. The surgeon came and visited with us after he was all done. He had good news and some not so good news. Cooper did great in the surgery. Unfortunately the hole in his abdomen was much larger than he ever imagined it to be. He had hoped to be able to stretch the muscles and sew them together to create a tight firm belly. Cooper's stomach muscles are pretty much nonexistent so they had to use a mesh to hold everything in place. What this means is Cooper will still have a belly. It is about half the size as it was before. The doctor thinks that Cooper will grow into it over the next few years. The bad part about this is that Cooper will always have a weak abdomen. He won't be able to participate in all activities and he will always have to be extra careful. I think I went into this somewhat naively. I thought that he would be "perfect" if he could just get through the surgery. I didn't think about the chance that this would be a lifetime thing.

After speaking with the doctor we met Cooper in his room in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. It was quite a shock to see my tiny little boy with so many tubes sticking in and out of him. He has eight tubes! One down his nose to suction anything in his stomach, a breathing tube down his throat, a central line in his jugular, an IV in each arm, two drains in the incision and finally a catheter. When we came into the room Coop's nurse was getting him all hooked up to various machines. I guess Cooper didn't want to be asleep anymore so he semi woke up and tried to pull the breathing tube out. Ryan yelled at the nurse and before we knew it there were a dozen nurses and doctors in here. I guess when he pulled the tube out all his stats dropped and all kinds of alarms went off. It was a very scary 45 minutes that they worked on him. Since then he has tried to wake up a few times. They had to restrain his arms so he doesn't try to pull out the breathing tube again. The nurse thinks that he is a trouble maker!

State of the Art
Scary...
Ryan and I will be staying in the room with Coop. I hope we get some sleep. I don't know how it will be possible. We will write again tomorrow!

4 comments:

  1. Praying for you all! Remember God gives kids amazing strength...just as he does thier parents!!!!

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  2. Oh my gosh...where have I been???? So sorry to hear Cooper and his mommy and daddy are having to go through this. So rough, and yes, so scary. I think we all feel the way you felt...that if you can just get them home, you can get everything "fixed." It's a sad reality that some of these things, do mean they will have challenges throughout their life. It's important for us to remember, God put them with us for a reason after plan "A" fell through...and we, as their families, can help them to achieve their potential, whatever that may be. I am so thankful God brought him home, so that through these potential challenges, he has unconditional love and support. You are an amazing mother...I can't wait till we meet one day. Lots of love and well wishes coming your way girl. Love, Misty (Trigg and Ivor's mama.)

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  3. We're in room 920 if you need anything- Paul, Kirsten and Katie

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