Surgery Plans

We are cautiously hopeful about Bennett's surgery in less than 5 days.  It's hard to believe are excited to put our child under the knife.  But we are looking forward to having a put-back-together baby.  Not only will it be easier for us to love on him (there are several ways we cannot hold him right now), it will be easier for us to put him on his tummy to help him develop his motor skills.  


There are alot of unanswered questions that we hope to get answered on Tuesday when we meet with the pediatric surgeon.  However, there are a few things we do know now:


Bennett will go into surgery at 7am on 12/16.  He will be the first surgery of the day.  

His surgery should take about 1.5 hours so he's likely to be out of surgery by 8:30am.  At that time, he'll go to the recovery room and stay for a while.  They have told us that they expect he'll be in recovery until about 1pm.  At that point, he'll be moved to his hospital room to stay.


We don't know what to expect with his feedings after his surgery but what we have been told is that they will start refeeding him very slowly (like last time).  They will give him a small amount and make sure it goes through the bowels correctly.  We will be looking for a dirty diaper at that point.  If that goes well, they will feed him more and more until he is eating normally.


This process and his healing will take just under a week, we are told.  But, we know that Bennett doesn't always play by the rules so we are preparing for it to take longer.  We are just praying that this process will not be as painful as before.


Once Bennett is out of surgery (and as long as his food moves correctly down through his bowels), Bennett should not have an ileostomy bag anymore.  He should only have the same scar he has now showing that he once had abdominal surgery.

We expect that, after surgery, Bennett will be able to do go about his life as any normal child (with CF, of course). Depending on when the pediatric surgeon feels that he is ready, we will begin allowing Bennett to put pressure on his abdomen.  This means we will be able to throw him on our shoulder to burp him, put him on his tummy and help him learn to roll over.


While we are looking forward to Bennett's Humpty Dumpty surgery, we are also aware that should Bennett get sick or should the doctor determine at Bennett's appointment on Tuesday that Bennett is not ready, we will not go forward with the surgery.  But we're hopeful and praying for good health!