Little bumps..

Dahlia was having a good day yesterday. She wasn't however, pooping. Dahlia was being fed super slow through her g-tube and all was going well. Again, except for not pooping. Last night she started spitting up. Not a lot but enough to be concerned. She continued to spit up this morning and so they took and X-ray of her chest and abdomen. From what the nurse was able to tell us was that her chest X-ray looked fine. I think if there was something wrong, they would have told us by now. The X-ray of her abdomen however shows there is a lot of poop. So they decided to stop the feeding pump until she goes.

She has been pooping just a tiny bit but she needs to go more. I am thinking that she has been afraid to push when she has to poop because it might hurt her incisions.

So we are waiting to hear from the doctor so that they can tell us in any better detail what they saw in the X-rays.

So today she is feeling no so good. She's been grumpy and tired. My poor baby needs a break.

Aside from that, everything else seems to be going well. Its just that since her G.I. tract (any ones for that matter) is not tip top, it seems to affect everything else, heart rate, breathing rate and so on.

Hope to have better news tomorrow or even sooner...

Day 9.

Dahlia is doing a lot better. Although she wasn't in the best spirits today (after 2 big surgeries who would be?) but she is doing better.

They started her feeds today. They are slooooowly working their way up to what she is used to eating at home. They have also ok'd me to give her actual food. Aside from the pediasure that she is getting via gtube, today she ate a little oatmeal, some cheerios, 1 strand of plain spaghetti pasta, 2 crackers and a lot of apple juice and water.

They will slowly give her more pediasure until she is taking in her normal amount with no problems. I asked one of the surgeons today if all goes well, when could we expect to be home. He said probably Monday. I was a bit disappointed, I was hopping it would be this Saturday but as much as I want her home, I'd rather she stay here a few more days than leaving too early and having to come back.

So hopefully all will go well. Her tummy is a little swollen but it could be because she finally has some food in there. The surgeons checked it out and they said it looks good. They said everything looks really good.

:)

Yipee!

NG tube and chest tube are out! They did a follow up X-ray to make sure all is good and all is good! I was also abel to hold her for a while!  :)

Day 7

Little update...

Dahlia is doing really good. Her numbers continue to be good. They will do another X-ray this morning and as long as everything looks good, they will remove the NG tube (the tube in her nose that goes to her tummy) and her chest tube.

Go baby go!!

Day 5

So first and foremost, Dahlia is doing well. 

Yesterday Dahlias belly was a little swollen and pretty hard. They thought it might be due to so much medication or maybe because they had tried feeding her but she wasn't digesting it yet because she was not ready. They had a few ideas but were not sure and just decided on, "let wait and see". 

Yesterday evening she started spitting up blood. Old brown blood, a lot. I've always feared that one day she would start spitting up blood out of nowhere. You can only imagine my horror when it was actually happening. And it wasn't a little, it was A LOT. This went on for a while before they decided to have an X-ray done of her chest and abdomen. 

The look on the surgeons face that came in said it all. He went right to her and felt her tummy and said that the X-ray was very concerning. They said she had a lot of air in her abdomen. Air in the intestines and stomach is OK, but air in the abdomen is no good. He said this could be a sign of a hole in her intestines. If there is a hole, then stuff could leak out and cause some major damage. He then said she needed to have surgery ASAP. 

So we talked to a couple of the surgeons, they told us all sorts of things that it could be and around midnight we took her down to the OR. They started the surgery around 12:30am and finished 2 hours later. 

They said they found a hole in the back of her stomach about the size of a quarter. They said it was an ulcer like hole. They said that it had absolutely nothing to do with her recent surgery and that it was pure coincidence that it happened around the same time. He said on one hand it was good that it happened while she was hospitalized so that they were able to fix it right away but it was also bad that it was so close to her recent surgery. Now we have to worry about her patch on her diaphragm getting infected because they opened her again. They did start antibiotics to hopefully prevent any infection. 

She is doing good this morning. The first thing she said to me was, "aqua nam nam", water & food. The plan today is to keep her comfortable and calm. Her numbers are good and we'll keep praying for her to keep getting better. No more surprises! 

The amount of support we have gotten is absolutely incredible. Larissa & David showed up right away, as did Joel & Heidi. Abels friends and co-workers also showed up. And the number of texts, phone calls and I love yous from my sisters and everyone else sure made us feel loved. 

Thank you everyone. 

Day 4.

Hello all.

Dahlia was having some breathing issues. She was breathing kind of fast. They think this was because she still has some fluid in her chest cavity. They saw that there was a clog in the chest tube so they did some stuff to it to get it moving.  It worked because all this brown looking blood started coming out. This  is good. Brown blood is old blood so this is good. 

They said her X-ray from this morning looks about the same from yesterday but since stuff is coming out this is ok. 

AND best of all , she is breathing a lot better. She's still taking fast breaths but she's breathing better. Let hope this stays the same and keeps getting better. 

Since she's getting better we might be moving out of the PICU today. They told us this yesterday so lets see if we get to move on up. 

Thank you for checking in.

Oct. 31, 2012

So am a lot worse at updating this blog as I thought I would be.

OK lets see........

Since the last update in June, Dahlia was hospitalized for a couple of days due to some virus she caught. She got over it pretty quickly but while she was in the hospital, they took an X-ray and noticed that it looked as though she might have torn her diaphragm again.

So we met with Dr. Grikscheit (her surgeon) who said that since she wasn't having any symptoms that were bothering her, lets wait about 3 months and follow up.

About 3 months later she caught a nasty cough and to rule out pneumonia, they took an X-ray. Dr. Grikscheit checked it out and confirmed that is was in fact torn.

So cut to today. She had her 4th diaphragm repair. What was estimated to be a 1 1/2 hr surgery turned out to be just a bit over 5 hours.
Apparently the previous patch that was placed to repair the hole was gone! So she put in another one, one that should hopefully stay and stay for good.
She said there was a lot of scar tissue and lots of intestine in her chest cavity and so she had to be very careful and take things really slow. This is why it took so long.
Now she's resting. She has a chest tube in and should hopefully only be in for about a day or two. She also had an epidural for the pain since having a tube between your ribs is very painful.
She's been in and out since the surgery. She's given us a few smiles and nods to us when we say something she likes.

They (the nurses) tell us that she is looking really good. We are praying that everything keeps going forward.

Abel and I had a pretty hard time with this one. You'd think it would get easier after the 5th surgery but it doesn't. I don't know if its because she's older and she kind of knows whats going on. I don't know if its just because its been a while (just over a year) from her last surgery.  Or maybe because its a new hospital and a new surgery team. In any case, Abel and I were a mess all morning. When Dahlia was taken away to the OR, I felt like I couldn't breath, it was pretty bad. Oh poor me, she's the one who was cut open and is lying on a hospital bed but whoa is me!! haha

Here she is patiently waiting and playing. 

Getting closer and still finds time to play.

Here she is after 5 long hours of hard work.

Aside from this big surgery, Dahlia has been a crazy monkey. She's talking, running and playing all the time. She is a such a great baby. She's also eating a lot. She ate so much the other day, she made herself gag! We've also taken our first family trip!! And where did we go? Disneyland? Nah! Grand Canyon?! Nah! Wally World?!?!?! Nah!!! LAS VEGAS!!!!

You know that saying, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"? Well let just hope thats true...... because she might have drawn on the hotel door and bathroom wall with a crayon.

Here she is making herself a drink. Only Patron for her!! 

This bed should do! 

 Bath time anyone?!

Checking out the view.

We also went to Solvang for our cousins beautiful wedding.  

She got herself a new hat & sweater.

And this trip to Solvang wouldn't be complete without a Danish dress!

Here are some wedding pictures...... of her!

Last but not least, Halloween EVE! Abel coworkers were sweet enough to get together for some pizza and candy and she got to dress up as her homegirl Minnie!!

I will post something soon as soon as she is feeling better.

Thanks!!