Day 37

Wow - Hard to believe it has been 37 days of this new reality... We met with Landry's surgeon today who was back from vacation. She had a slightly different opinion than the surgeon from Seattle who was filling in for her. She believes that there is not a blockage of the intestine but rather we were fooled into believing that Landry was handling his feeds. She thinks that the food was only slightly passing through the bigger portion into the smaller one and the rest was getting blocked up. She thinks it got so back up again that it couldn't push the food through and that is why he was throwing up, etc. She thinks that we just need to slow down our approach in introducing larger feeds. The larger portion of the intestine needs to shrink down in order to push the food through properly into the smaller (micro colon) section. The more it got backed up these past couple weeks, the less it was able to do its job of pushing the food through properly. The micro colon is underdeveloped because it wasn't used in utero since that is where the separation occurred. The only way to get this micro colon up to functioning size is to use it and gradually stretch it to a useful, functioning size. This isn't a new plan or new information to us. This is what we were told was the plan initially so we are still staying the course - just starting over. If the larger section does not shrink down and begin to function correctly, another surgery will be needed to either cut that portion out or reconstruct it to a smaller size. Is this all clear as mud? Every day I feel like I am figuring out more and more about his condition but it is also confusing because different doctors and nurses have their own interpretation which sometimes just confuses things further. The surgeon is obviously the one who knows the most about this though and I find her very easy to understand so that is helpful.

So today we started the feedings. He gets them through a bottle but because it is only 5cc's, he finishes it in 2 seconds flat. The good news is he got his tube out of his nose that was sucking up all sorts of yummy stuff from his tummy so now he looks like this:

It is so nice to have this out - it bothered him a lot. When Landry first started eating, I was so eager to get the feeds up to where he was satisfied, but this time around, I want them to move as slow as molasses. The discrepancy between the large and small sections that were joined back together was one of the greatest that our surgeon has ever seen. I'm definitely no expert in small intestines, (although I might be one after this is over) but it just seems nothing sort of a miracle that the two will end up similar and functioning. If the doctor is trying it though, theres gotta be a chance!