A Whole New World

Chase had his surgery yesterday to open his airway and fix the exotropia of his eyes. The day started off bright and early in order to get to Children's Mercy by 6am. We met with the anesthesiologist and the surgeons, gave our hugs and kisses, and off Chase went to the OR. Dr. Olitsky would go first to fix Chase's eyes, then Dr. Wei to work on his ears, nose, and throat. After about 45 min, Dr. Olitsky came to tell us everything went great with the eyes. Then, about 30 minutes later, Dr. Wei called us to tell us she didn't think Chase needed tubes in his ears afterall, and she did a bronchoscopy to look at his airway and saw that scar tissue had developed in his nose from all the NG tubes and things when he was in the NICU, and also scar tissue right below his trach tube. So these scar tissue formations were narrowing his airway and needed to be removed. She originally thought she would have to drill the bone in his nose to open his nasal passage, so we were happy to hear it wasn't going to be as invasive. And so the 3.5 hr surgery turned into about 2.5 hrs :) When she was finished, she showed us pictures of his airway before and after, and said everything went great and she was excited b/c he could possibly go home without a trach. We were shocked since we both decided it would probably be spring before we even attempted decannulating him. But this also excited us, and we were cautiously optomistic (as Chris always says). :)
When we went back to recovery, he looked pretty pitiful with a bloody nose, bloody trach, and bloody tears. But after a couple hours he waved at Daddy and cracked a smile, and we knew he was already feeling better. But he was pretty uncomfortable most the afternoon and evening, and did not like all the wires and tubes. We tried plugging his trach but he immediately struggled and his oxygenation dropped, so I just assumed he'd still go home with the trach. Then the ENT team came in before 7am, and since he did well overnight, it was decided to pull the trach and just tape gauze over the hole and monitor him during the morning and while he's napping. He did great, and kept his oxygenation up, so we were discharged about 1pm, and he "talked" all the way home and seriously hasn't stopped. It's wonderful! And it's a whole new world for us!


Waving at Daddy




No Trach :)


And my oxygen sats are still 100% :) :) :)