Day 37: Through Surgery

John came through surgery very well. He is currently in the PICU and Mark and I will be trading off staying with him so that he doesn't wake up without one of us there. The surgeon was able to turn 42cm of dilated small intestine into 103-105cm of small intestine that is the proper size and hopefully will work much better. She was also able to use alloderm, a tissue thingy that I don't completely understand yet, to reinforce his abdominal wall and at the moment he looks really strange, not just because of the tubes and drains and such, but because his belly now goes straight down from his rib cage to his hips instead of laying out both of his sides pretty wide. She was able to get the liver biopsy and his liver looks pretty and pink just as it should and she was also able to remove his gallbladder which was inflamed and probably full of sludge or stones - no wonder the kid was complaining of pain in his side the last couple of months. They are using a new pain management system that pumps local anesthetic to the wound site and then he gets morphine too, so while he's not overly comfortable he's not horribly in pain either, and has already decided that his hearing aids should stay in and his covers should stay off.

Thanks for your prayers!