Kyra's surgery has been moved to Tuesday, March 24th. This is the day we have been long awaiting, an attempt to re-connect Kyra's bowel in hopes to place her on track for HOME! The surgery is scheduled to last all day. For sometime now her surgeon, Dr. John DiFiore, has been reviewing the best approach for Kyra. Kory & I have all the confidence in the world in Dr. DiFiore... honestly he performed an amazing task when he pieced together very small sections of viable intestine to provide Kyra 9 cm. back in June. At that time no one thought we would see Kyra grow and thrive as she has. Dr. DiFiore believes he will now have approx. 30cm to work with.
Current condition & corrective procedure: Kyra currently has a portion of her small intestine brought to the surface of her stomach (ostomy/stoma) The ostomy allows not only relief in digestion but it is also our pathway in providing her continuous milk feeds directly to her intestine which has proven critical to her intestinal growth. The re-connection will bring down the intestine and eliminate the stoma. In order for the re-connection to be successful Dr. DiFiore will also have to widen the passage between the stomach and small intestine (pylorus -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pylorus) Currently Kyra's pylorus is narrow making it a difficult for the stomach to empty therefore bringing digestion to a halt. The outer portion of the pyloric muscle will be cut then sutured in the opposite direction to prevent the muscle from narrowing again. As a result of Kyra's narrow pylorus she suffers from severe reflux. To correct the reflux a procedure called Nissen Fundoplication will be performed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_fundoplication) This procedure will take a portion of her stomach and wrap it around the lower esophagus to act as a muscle and prevent reflux. The "nissen" should prove to be beneficial in forcing the stomach to empty into the pylorus and then thru the bowel. As a precaution a feeding tube will be surgically placed thru her g-tube in the event Kyra's stomach fails to properly empty after surgery allowing us to continue with feeds directly to the intestines and continue to promote growth. Once Kyra's stomach begins to empty properly, the feeding tube can be removed bedside.
This will be a day filled with both anxiety and excitement... and hopefully at the end of the week a great big smile from Kyra!
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We pray that all has gone well. We have, asked about, thought of and prayed for this little one and her family many times. So adorably precious...
ReplyDelete--Charlie's Dad