Tabitha's Surgery

I'm writing from Cincinnati (well, actually Florence, Kentucky.)  Tabitha's surgery was this morning, and all went well!  Her ostomy bag is GONE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (Can you tell I'm happy about that?)  The surgery went smoothly, and her wake up was much better than last time.  Last time she woke up very angry; this time she was calm and not upset.  She's pretty grumpy and really wants to eat, but other than that she's doing well.  She's already started watching Dora DVDs, so all is well as long as no one gets between her and the TV!  :)  Heath and I are taking turns staying with her and staying at the hotel with the other kids.  My mom is here helping us too, which has been great!  Plus my friend Kelly and her boys are here, so everyone has a playmate.

Tabitha still has the catheter through her abdomen.  The urologist wants to keep it there until we're sure that normal cathing will work OK.  As long as all goes well, they'll take that out before we go home, and we'll be back to cathing every 4 hours.  My biggest concern right now is figuring out the bowel stuff.  Before her operation in May she had no chance of bowel control; now she has a chance for it, but we just have to see what happens.  They can't tell us for sure whether or not she'll have it.  For the next few weeks she'll probably have very bad diarrhea because of the colon not having worked all summer.  After that things should settle down, and we should start to figure out what we're dealing with.  Dr. Levitt thinks she may be hypermotile (colon moves too fast).  This is not what I wanted to hear.  That is very hard to regulate, and we'll have a lot to learn.  No matter what, she'll always have issues with constipation and/or diarrhea because of the way her colon works.  So we will always be dealing with some combination of laxatives or enemas or strict diet to try to keep things working right.  And it's not something that's figured out once and for all.  So I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of continued frustration on my part trying to deal with it all.  Once we get her system regulated, only then could we even hope to see if she'll be able to potty train.

So while we're figuring that all out we could very well be back to where we were when we first adopted her . . . constant poopy diapers.  Only now she's 4 instead of 2, so it'll be that much worse.  You know, I was sure once we got rid of the ostomy I'd never complain about anything else again, and I am indeed THRILLED to be rid of it!!  But please pray for me over these next few weeks...months....years.  I do not like dealing with any of this, and sometimes it just feels like a never-ending nightmare.  Fortunately, Tabitha usually takes it all in stride and isn't bothered too much.

We'll be here for the rest of the week.  We're hoping she'll be discharged on Friday, but we'll see.  Meanwhile we're very thankful that her recovery is going well, and for the fun stay we're having.  Hopefully all continues to go well.  I'll post again if we have anything new to share!

Tabitha in the pre-op room

Tabitha watching Dora after surgery