Save the Date

We officially have the date for Landon's pull-thru/colostomy reversal surgery- Dec. 10th. We will drive up there on the 8th and stay in a hotel, and then first thing the morning of the 9th he gets admitted and placed on a clear liquid diet with frequent irrigations through the colostomy and his rectum. The surgery is sometime mid morning on the 10th, and then he stays in the hospital 7-10 days before discharge. After discharge they recommend we stay in Cincinnati a couple more days, and so again we will stay in a hotel and explore what there is to do in Cincinnati. I'm hoping to be home by the 23rd, which is Carson's (our oldest son) birthday. In case we aren't back in time we are having his birthday party on the 1st before we leave. It will be sad if we don't make it back for his actual birthday, but that was the way the scheduling had to happen. Aside from all of the other reasons that Landon needs prayers for his bowels to wake up and for him to have a quick recovery, that is another reason. So please keep him in your prayers until then.

On October 25th I have a phone appointment with Dr. Levitt, the surgeon doing Landon's procedure. I'm asking a long list of specific questions about everything. One concern I have is that anesthesiology wants to do a phone consult with me on Dec. 5th, just 3 days before our scheduled departure to Cincinnati. They are concerned with Landon's history of a previous cardiac arrest. Landon did go through over 4 hours of general anesthesia for his colostomy surgery and did fine when he was only 2.5 weeks old, but that was considered a life saving surgery and so they were more lenient on the conditions they would perform the surgery in. This surgery isn't absolutely necessary, yes Landon is doing perfectly, yes he could live his whole life with a colostomy, but this is a quality of life issue. I'm hoping to gain insight from Dr. Levitt on how likely he feels that it is that anesthesiology will either shoot this down or scare me out of doing it by discussing risks. I'm pretty nervous and anxious for both phone consultations.

Landon is still doing great. Still off antibiotics, still no infections. We are still doing irrigations 2-3 times per day, but we haven't tried to stop. Doing them is manageable and so it isn't worth the risk to stop doing them for experimental purposes. He is still gaining weight like crazy. All 3 of our boys had these matching shirts, but Landon's was in size 6-9 months. I put the other 2 boys in theirs, but figured Landon's would be huge on him. My mom was over at my house and insisted that I try it on him anyway and it fit! He's only 3.5 months old and it actuually fit! He is right on track with the size his brothers were at the same age, despite everything he has been through. Not to mention that most Hirschsprung's babies have some degree of difficutly absorbing nutrients and growing. We have been blessed 100 times for every unfortunate event that has happened and I am so thankful. I will probably update next after the phone appointment next week and let everyone know how it goes and what Dr. Levitt has to say.