1/10-17/11

So um,.....yeah.

Omi was taken from St. Luke's to Children's Mercy Hospital tonight.

Omi has double hernias. 
A quick explanation; His intestines have busted through a lining in his abdomen and go into his scrotum. Fun right? So when he poops, it has to travel through his sack to get done. It can't feel good.
It's repaired by a fairly common surgery. A lot of kids with his condition get them.

It's been on his list of things to do for a while, but the staff wanted to wait until his respiratory rate had improved, cause they have to put down another breathing tube, and they wanted to wait until the were pretty sure he would come off the vent quickly. They even brought in a surgeon to look at him and try to schedule a surgery in a few weeks to just get it over with.

They check his hernias once a shift to make sure that they are able to be pushed back in where they belong. One of them couldn't be pushed back (they call it "reducing" his hernias) So they brought in a Doctor to try it. She also could not get it to reduce. This is now considered a medical emergency cause it could cut off the circulation to his bowel and it could die. Also the bowel could perforate sending toxins into his bloodstream. Nothing to mess with or take lightly.

So the Doc called the surgeon on duty to see what he could do. The surgeon was right in the middle of a surgery and had others booked up, so we had no choice but to send him to Mercy. The Doctor said she needed my permission to send him over. She said "You could let him stay and wait,..... but I wouldn't if I were you." Fair enough, he's going to Mercy.

Most of the staff looks bewildered and sad to see Omi leave and it was just awful. These people know him so well and to think of him not coming back is traumatic to us.
I asked his Doctor; "If I "somehow" manage show up with him back here at some point, you have to take care of him right?" she responded; "Technically,.....yes" 

They bring up this creepy looking thing to transport him.

Heather rode in the ambulance with him, and I followed. We get to Mercy, check in and think "I don't want to learn my way around a new Hospital, and learn a new staff."

This just sucks.


Mercy is a great Hospital, and I don't want to disrespect what they do over there, but we've spent three months over at St. Luke's and want to finish up over there. 
So, long story short, we're already working on getting him back over there after this part is over.


We meet the Doctors and they tell us that they were able to reduce his hernia.
Awesome. Great news.
They tell us that he does need the surgery, and will most likely have it done in the next 24-48 hours. They are going to assess him early in the morning to see how he looks and decide when they are going to do it. 
If they can and will send him back, he could be back by the weekend.
I know I sound like I'm bitching a lot about him being over there, and I am. That's been his (and our) home for the past three months and we have all (Omi included) gotten attached to the staff over there. They know him so well, and we don't want to start over again, especially since he seems to be so close to going home.

Over the last two weeks, he has been making such big improvements. He had low blood sugars, so his feeding were spread out over two hours to compensate. The day before yesterday, they went to an hour and a half. Yesterday, they went to an hour. Today he went to a half an hour, right where he's supposed to be and he tolerated all the changes just fine. That's how long a bottle feeding is supposed to be.
They weren't giving him a bottle until his respiratory rate came down. He's been breathing slower and slower to the point where they were going to give him his first bottle feedings this weekend if he kept it up. He's almost there.
His labs for his liver functions had been great. They were in the last week of his medication, planning on having him off by Friday. 
Everything that has been plaguing him for a while is getting better. We have to get him to learn how to eat, ween his oxygen dependency down a little more, and then it will be time to make plans to go home. These things take time, but he's making great progress, and this setback just sucks for us.
Omi himself probably doesn't really care or realize what's going on, but it's a huge deal to us to send him home from St. Luke's.


But for the meantime, he's going to be at Children's Mercy. He's fine and getting the care he needs.
He got his first trip outside and ride in an ambulance today, so I guess there's that.


Wish him luck and I'll post more when I can and know a bit more.