The day after the second surgery
I still believe Willow was given to our family for a reason and boy it sure would be nice to know what that reason may be; but alas that is not for me to know yet. What I do know is that our little girl is a fighter, she is not going to let this get her down! So Tuesday was the watch and wait day, lets see what happens while she is given all the steroids, what happens with the cultures they are trying to grow etc. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! Ugggh was that day awful or what?! Well, things can never be easy so I would take the day of waiting I suppose over the next few days....
Wednesday we found out that she has a blockage in her tube in the stomach (also called a pseudo-cyst), she is also fighting the shunt itself as she developed an allergic reaction to it, and so around 6 pm the neurosurgeon calls our nurse who comes and finds me. He confirmed the blockage in her stomach that we had seen in that mornings test, and said she would be having surgery on Thursday. He was not sure of her eosinophil count as he did not have those labs in front of him, but there is a possibility of him having to externalize the shunt. To externalize a shunt, I will save the gory details and tell you to just think of it as a catheter for her head (shutter, I know I still do).
So Thursday comes around and Dr. Foody (the neurosurgeon) told me surgery would be around 10 am... Yeah try more like 1 pm before they took us downstairs to prep her! Seriously?! I have a 4 1/2 month old who nurses every 2 hours and had not eaten since midnight (okay, so I cheated and pumped at 4 am and fed her a little of that) but still, that was not what we were told! So anyway, before surgery Dr. Foody comes to talk to us and tells us that her eosinophil count is indeed still high, it has only gone down about 40% and the number was drastically high in comparison to what it should be. So the only solution at this point is to externalize the shunt. :(
So here it is Friday now, she has a tube coming out of her head, all of her siblings have now seen her; funny thing Mandie and Evan do not seem to care there is a tube coming from her head... Mandie showed a brief amount of concern but that was all, Evan seemed oblivious to the whole deal. Jonathan had already seen her early today as I picked him up from school at lunch time to give him special one on one time with her so he would know she was really okay! Boy did he need that, poor kid worries way too much. LOL
So Willow post-second surgery? Well she is doing well, she is only slightly fussy at times, still loves to cuddle with me, and is still thankfully nursing like a champ! I am so proud of her, she still gives us her smiles and is still very much her wiggly Willow self. Currently we are residing in the ICU for pediatrics and she is only allowed a couple visitors at a time, but she is allowed company from 11 am to 9 pm.
Thank you to everyone for their kind words, gifts, time, help, prayers, thoughts, words, energy and so much more. It has been so overwhelming and yet very much appreciated.
Wednesday we found out that she has a blockage in her tube in the stomach (also called a pseudo-cyst), she is also fighting the shunt itself as she developed an allergic reaction to it, and so around 6 pm the neurosurgeon calls our nurse who comes and finds me. He confirmed the blockage in her stomach that we had seen in that mornings test, and said she would be having surgery on Thursday. He was not sure of her eosinophil count as he did not have those labs in front of him, but there is a possibility of him having to externalize the shunt. To externalize a shunt, I will save the gory details and tell you to just think of it as a catheter for her head (shutter, I know I still do).
So Thursday comes around and Dr. Foody (the neurosurgeon) told me surgery would be around 10 am... Yeah try more like 1 pm before they took us downstairs to prep her! Seriously?! I have a 4 1/2 month old who nurses every 2 hours and had not eaten since midnight (okay, so I cheated and pumped at 4 am and fed her a little of that) but still, that was not what we were told! So anyway, before surgery Dr. Foody comes to talk to us and tells us that her eosinophil count is indeed still high, it has only gone down about 40% and the number was drastically high in comparison to what it should be. So the only solution at this point is to externalize the shunt. :(
So here it is Friday now, she has a tube coming out of her head, all of her siblings have now seen her; funny thing Mandie and Evan do not seem to care there is a tube coming from her head... Mandie showed a brief amount of concern but that was all, Evan seemed oblivious to the whole deal. Jonathan had already seen her early today as I picked him up from school at lunch time to give him special one on one time with her so he would know she was really okay! Boy did he need that, poor kid worries way too much. LOL
So Willow post-second surgery? Well she is doing well, she is only slightly fussy at times, still loves to cuddle with me, and is still thankfully nursing like a champ! I am so proud of her, she still gives us her smiles and is still very much her wiggly Willow self. Currently we are residing in the ICU for pediatrics and she is only allowed a couple visitors at a time, but she is allowed company from 11 am to 9 pm.
Thank you to everyone for their kind words, gifts, time, help, prayers, thoughts, words, energy and so much more. It has been so overwhelming and yet very much appreciated.
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