Tuesday Evening, 9/18/07

Timeline:
11:30am - Nathan moves to surgery pre-op area
12:30pm - Moved to operating room
2:00pm - Surgery begins
7:30pm - Surgery finishes, Nathan is moved to PICU

Details:
The surgeon came out to talk with us shortly after finishing up. He wasn't able to reattach Nathan's bowels, but that was really a best-case scenario. There was quite a bit of scar tissue on Nathan's intestines, including a large jumble of bowel that needed to be unwrapped and inspected. A small hole was found and repaired near the area where his abdomen catheter was inserted. Small portions of dead intestine were removed at the ostomy and somewhere around 65cm down from his stomach. Both ends of the intestine at this split were finished off with new ostomies (yes, two of them).

Summary:
This was neither a best- nor worst-case scenario. Nathan has enough healthy intestine that he can live a healthy, normal life if he fully recovers. He will have another surgery to remove the ostomies and reconnect everything. There's no timetable on his recovery right now, but it's going to take a while. He's going to be on the TPN and lipids for months to come. They are hoping to get him on some nutrition before long for his intestines and to counter the effects of TPN on his kidneys.

That's about all I have for this evening. I'll add more updates in the days to come as I have time to reflect on anything.