Wednesday-O.R. Day

Well-today was quite the day. To begin with we didn't know what was going to be the outcome and we were more nervous than anything. We had to check Tacori in at 10am into same day surgery for an O.R. time at 12pm. Adam and I were able to walk her down to the induction room until they administered the anesthia to put her under. I cried yesterday when they did this for her CT and I "thought" I would be stronger if Adam walked and held her till she knocked out-but-I was wrong. I was taking pics while we were just walking towards her room and started crying-agghh. It took about a minute of them administering gas before she went out but we couldn't tell because her eyes stayed wide open-weird.
After about an hour, the airodigestive team came out to meet with us in a "Quiet Room." They ganged up on T first and then us. We met with everyone that was in the O.R. (maybe 10 different staff members from pulmonology, ENT and Gastrointestinal)Dr. Wood said -so far- he is okay with the development of her lungs and didn't see anything that really stuck out. He believes most of her illnesses are related to Lauryn being in preschool. Dr. Wood also sprayed sterile sea salt on her lungs so they could wash away any abnormal bacteria that may be growing so he stated he will reserve his final judgement until next week when the final culture results of these washings come in. The lungs need to be strong enough before the reconstruction can be done because there is a chance she will need to be on a breathing machine for awhile and we need to make sure her lungs will be able to tolerate it for infection processes and also the breathing machine tends to cause a little damage to the lung tissue.
Dr. Putnam (stomach doc) was there to see if there was any obvious stomach issues going on and then to insert a impedence probe that is inserted in her nose on down to her stomach and is hooked up to a machine that measures the acid in every little hiccup, cough or sneeze while she if fed over the next 24hrs. This will (God willing)stay in overnight and the final results will also come back next week. She is already on prevacid and if the acid comes back too high he will adjust the dosage. The acid plays a big role when it comes time to reconstruct because the acid could come up during a burp, etc. and that will destroy the rib graft they will be placing in her airway to widen it. We want to move forward in confidence so we will never have to look back.
Dr. Cotton (the MAN)came in last and said eventually she will need to have the rib graft placed anteriorly right underneath her vocal cords in two different surgical stages. We will know a timeline come next wednesday or thursday once all results are final and they come together as one to decide which path we are to take next. Dr. Cotton came in with confidence and basically reassured us we are in pediatric airway heaven and this is something he sees on a regular basis. AND THE BEST PART THAT MADE THIS WHOLE TRIP WORTH IT IS HE MENTIONED THAT SHE WILL BE ABLE TO TALK. For those of you that know T's history-we were told that there is a good chance that she will never be able to talk. Dr. Cotton said she would probably be hoarse but she will be able to communicate!! And like I told him I don't care if she says "MA" and it means "MILK"-I will take it. So we are here in the hospital camping out with T. SO this last pic I posted is T after OR in our room and still smiling. She's our champ! Tomorrow they will remove the impedence probe, she has some more scoping and speech appts and then we are hopefully outta here.