FROM: Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
ABOUT ME: Living the highs and lows of life in the adventurous pursuit of God Himself and of who I'm meant to be as the Bride of Christ.
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Saturday, September 06, 2008,4:12 p.m.
ZOEY'S SURGERY
Hey, all - Zoey (my 4-month-old niece) had her surgery yesterday. Here is a brief update sent out by my folks, and after that an update that came out a little later in the day from my brother, Greg. Greg's e-mail has a bit more detail about the bone surgery.
Zoey's surgery went well and she is now in ICU. She is one sick little girl with tubes everywhere. She is on a respirator, has IV's in her scalp and arm as well as a direct line into her jugular vein and also a feeding tube into her stomach. She also has 3 catheters (one in each kidney and one in the bladder) as well as a drain. The bladder apparently was in pieces and had to be stitched together so they do not want any pressure on it until healing occurs. She is also in traction with both legs up in the air with weights. All this on a 7lb. baby!!!
Due to the large amount of pain (primarily from the bone surgery), she is on extremely high doses of Morphine and so respiratory problems continue to be a concern. She has required a transfusion but no major bleeding issues to date.
We are extremely grateful for your prayers.
Diane and Ron
Hi everyone,
Here is the update on Zoey...
She was in surgery for about 7 hours yesterday and the surgeons were all pretty happy with how things proceeded. They broke both sides of her pelvis and moved the bones to properly close in the front and then repaired her bladder and reconstructed her lower abdomen that didn't form normally at birth. She was moved to the ICU after the surgery and we got to see her briefly last night. She was in quite a bit of pain, even with all the morphine that she was getting, so that was pretty difficult to watch. Overnight they decided to up the dosage and when we saw her this morning she looked more comfortable. Unfortunately one of the side effects to giving babies large doses of morphine is that they stop breathing, so she is intubated and has a ventilator breathing for her. She has a catheter in both kidneys and another in her bladder and a drain in her abdomen. She also has an IV in her arm, another in her head (another shaved patch!) and yet another directly into her jugular, since they had run out of places to poke and still needed to give her more stuff. Both her legs are sticking straight up in traction in order to get the pelvis to heal correctly and her whole body is bruised and swollen from the surgery. She is also on a feeding tube down her throat and they started to give her tiny amounts of milk this afternoon. Hopefully she is able to tolerate it and they can slowly up the amounts over the next few days.
She was scheduled to be in the ICU for only a day, but it looks like it will be longer as they won't send her upstairs to a ward until she can breath on her own. She will probably be in the hospital for about 6 weeks. All in all, it was a long, difficult day and it will be a long, difficult recovery, but as I always say, no matter how bad it gets, you don't have to look around very far at Children's Hospital to see kids that have it even worse, and that helps keep things in perspective.
Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes,
Greg
Please keep her and the family - my brother, Greg, his wife, Stephanie, and their other two kids, Eliana (2 years) and Zach (Zoey's twin) - in your prayers - thanks.
Zoey's surgery went well and she is now in ICU. She is one sick little girl with tubes everywhere. She is on a respirator, has IV's in her scalp and arm as well as a direct line into her jugular vein and also a feeding tube into her stomach. She also has 3 catheters (one in each kidney and one in the bladder) as well as a drain. The bladder apparently was in pieces and had to be stitched together so they do not want any pressure on it until healing occurs. She is also in traction with both legs up in the air with weights. All this on a 7lb. baby!!!
Due to the large amount of pain (primarily from the bone surgery), she is on extremely high doses of Morphine and so respiratory problems continue to be a concern. She has required a transfusion but no major bleeding issues to date.
We are extremely grateful for your prayers.
Diane and Ron
Hi everyone,
Here is the update on Zoey...
She was in surgery for about 7 hours yesterday and the surgeons were all pretty happy with how things proceeded. They broke both sides of her pelvis and moved the bones to properly close in the front and then repaired her bladder and reconstructed her lower abdomen that didn't form normally at birth. She was moved to the ICU after the surgery and we got to see her briefly last night. She was in quite a bit of pain, even with all the morphine that she was getting, so that was pretty difficult to watch. Overnight they decided to up the dosage and when we saw her this morning she looked more comfortable. Unfortunately one of the side effects to giving babies large doses of morphine is that they stop breathing, so she is intubated and has a ventilator breathing for her. She has a catheter in both kidneys and another in her bladder and a drain in her abdomen. She also has an IV in her arm, another in her head (another shaved patch!) and yet another directly into her jugular, since they had run out of places to poke and still needed to give her more stuff. Both her legs are sticking straight up in traction in order to get the pelvis to heal correctly and her whole body is bruised and swollen from the surgery. She is also on a feeding tube down her throat and they started to give her tiny amounts of milk this afternoon. Hopefully she is able to tolerate it and they can slowly up the amounts over the next few days.
She was scheduled to be in the ICU for only a day, but it looks like it will be longer as they won't send her upstairs to a ward until she can breath on her own. She will probably be in the hospital for about 6 weeks. All in all, it was a long, difficult day and it will be a long, difficult recovery, but as I always say, no matter how bad it gets, you don't have to look around very far at Children's Hospital to see kids that have it even worse, and that helps keep things in perspective.
Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes,
Greg
Please keep her and the family - my brother, Greg, his wife, Stephanie, and their other two kids, Eliana (2 years) and Zach (Zoey's twin) - in your prayers - thanks.
