Tummies

Well we've been keeping life interesting here at the Gorny household the past week or so! Last week Wednesday I had a surprise surgery to remove my infected appendix. I remember feeling really tired and run down since about Christmas time, and no matter what I did couldn't seem to get enough sleep. I attributed this to work, holidays, and still getting up in the middle of the night to pump. Then about 3 days before surgery I had a backache on my right side, took some ibuprofen, and tossed it up to busy day at work. The next day I started feeling quite bloated, figured I was constipated (see I have an explanation for everything), the next day the bloating continued and was joined by an ache when I pressed in my mid right abd. The ache progressed that evening gradually getting worse till I couldn't sleep through it at about 1 AM. The pain seemed to have settled in my right mid and lower abd, but I figured it was gas pains. Things like position changes aggravated the pain. I kinda thought maybe it was my appendix, but figured I wasn't having nearly as much pain as the patients I see come in with appendicitis, so couldn't be right? Well called one of my friendly coworkers for a second opinion, and they advised I come in to get checked, grumbling along the way I went in, and sure as shoot my appendix was inflamed on the CT scan. So out it came. All went well. The appendix was what's called retro cecal, basically instead of being up front like it is on most people it was along my back side (hence the back pain) it was 6 inches long and hard from what my surgeon tells me. He sent it to pathology to make sure there wasn't something wrong with it like a tumor, because it was so hard, that was all clear as well, just appendicitis. Bless my surgeon because my appendix was tucked back it was difficult to remove and he said he had to move a lot of things to get to it, but he was patient and got it out laproscopically, which I'm SO thankful for. This means only 3 weeks off of work instead of 6-8. I'm feeling great, no pain as of today, unless I sneeze, and the pain isn't in my incisions, it's where the appendix was chopped off. My energy is MUCH better, so thankful for that as well.

We thought Evan was getting a tooth since about Christmas time, he was just being more fussy and not sleeping as well at night and seemed to be chewing on more stuff. Well we felt pretty bad when we found out his G-tube was pinching him. He's put on 4lbs (up to 17lbs 80z now) since it was placed and the space between his stomach and outer abdomen had gotten bigger, and the tube was digging into him. He had pretty much all but stopped eating entirely, and we didn't figure it out till the day before my surgery. So the same day as my surgery Stephan was bringing Evan to see his pediatrician and a surgeon to try to get the tube adjusted while trying to see me post-0p. The surgeon expanded the tube and cauterized off the piece of tissue that the tube had cut and made bleed. The next morning Evan took 1/2 a big jar of bananas and 1oz of milk out of the bottle. Poor kiddo's stuck with newbie parents that take a bit to figure stuff out sometimes.

Evan had a procedure done at Minneapolis Children's today to exchange the tube you can see in the picture of him grabbing his feet for something called a mickey button. Basically the tube he had was held in place by a foam disc in his stomach, in order to remove it they had to go down with a scope and snip the tube and then pull the disc piece out through his mouth so they could then place the new tube. In order to do this he had to be under anesthesia again which he tolerated very well. He went in for the procedure at 11:00 and was back in our arms at 12:20, and we were on our way out of the hospital at 1:20PM. This new tube is hopefully going to be much nicer than the old one. The old one had right angles on it that would pinch his belly and cut his skin. This tube has a balloon filled with water that holds it in his belly, and very nice rounded edges. It also doesn't have a tube hanging on Evan all of the time. Instead it has a port where you can plug the tube in when you need it and remove it when you don't. Evan already seems to be some more comfortable with this new tube. He will not have to have anymore procedures to replace the tubes either. To exchange this one the balloon is deflated you just pull it out and put in a new one and fill up the balloon. Evan hasn't really done much on his tummy since the last tube was placed so we're hoping this one will be more comfortable and he'll be more into it again. We visited with our good friend colleen afterwards in the cities and enjoyed a meal together. Was nice to see her, and to be able to take a break before hitting the road again, and avoided rush hour traffic as a perk.

Pictures

first a family picture taken of us when we were at my mom's for Christmas

Next a picture of Evan's grandma and grandpa Gorny reading him a book on their recent visit at the end of December.

And Evan is getting a tooth after all, we can feel the sharp little bugger poking through his lower right front, and see it a bit. He really enjoys frozen strawberries now out of this feeder sack thing (not sure what they're called), I think it feels good on his tooth, and tastes ooh so good!