Day 2 in the ICU

All is going really well today. She has slept well and is very much more relaxed than yesterday. Her ultrasound this morning was good. It looks like her swelling is going down and her veins and arteries are a little less stressed. Blood flow is good and her labs look promising.

We are still on track to hopefully getting her tummy closed up on monday and then possible extubation on tuesday or wednesday.

Love to all,

Angie

Sedation, finally

Well, we finally were able to get Kaelyn sufficiently sedated around 1:30 pm. She is peacefully sleeping and no longer trying to pull out all of her tubes. I love that she is so fiesty, but right now she really needs to rest.

Everything is still looking good with our pretty little girl and her new pretty little liver!

Love,

Ang

ICU day 1

Kaelyn is such a fiesty, fiery little chica. They have been giving her sedation every hour all night long and it has done very little. She wants that breathing tube out and her hands free. Every time she hears mine or Wade's voice she opens her eyes and tries to talk and cry. She also is arching her back, mind you all of her abdominal muscles are severed at this point, trying to sit up and get away. This is all a very good thing, though hard for a mommy to watch. Thankfully this morning at rounds the doctors agread that she needs to be more sedated so she will not injure herself. So they are starting her on a different sedative that will basically knock her out for a few days. They need to keep her intubated until they can close up her belly, which will probably be on Monday. She is still fairly swollen, but they expect that through the weekend it will decrease so they can sew her up. The reason she has so much edema is because they had to clamp her native veins and arteries for such a long time (70 minutes)in order to sew in the new liver.

This mornings ultrasound was very promising. All of the blood flow to the liver is working. She is producing bile and her liver function tests are actually very good at the moment. We could not ask for more.

So, the plan is to try and keep her asleep so her body will recover and the edema will go down. Monday will hopefully be when we can close her abdomen and extubate her.

Love to all!

Angie

Kaelyn is in the ICU!

Okay, Kaelyn is now getting set up in her room in the ICU post surgery. Wade and I just spoke with Dr. Healey. Here is a recap of what he said: He was really pleased with how well it all went. The old liver was really bad and degraded so it took a while to get it all out. The new liver is from a pediatric donor and Dr. Healey said it was the best possible match for Kaelyn. And it was worth the wait to get. He said that they had to reconstruct the bile duct and attach it directly to the intestines instead of the natural flow through the main bile duct because of all of the degradation of the ducts. They also found a huge collection of bile in the old liver so they are going to keep her on antibiotics for a little longer than they normally would just in case. They also reconstructed a connection from her aorta to the liver because of the last thrombosis of the hepatic artery. But all looked extremely well on the post surgery ultrasound. They were not able to close her up just yet becuase of the length of the surgery. She is swollen and needs a little time to get off the extra fluid. Healey said that possible next Monday or Tuesday they could close her up. She is intubated of course, but I guess she has already opened her eyes and tried to move around, they quickly drugged her up to stop her spunk for her own safety. But it is a really good sign that she was alert. She will be on some heperine for profalactic reasons to fend off blood clots (that's what started all of our last bile duct problems - no blood clots!).

I could not stop myself from giving Dr. Healey a long overdue hug! He is such a miracle worker. I long to be able to give my Heavenly Father a hug for the wonderful blessings he has given us.

Love to all!

Angie

6 pm Update

Still in surgery. They are meticulously sewing the new liver. The nurse says Kaelyn is very stable and doing well. Hopefully she will be in recovery in a couple of hours.

4 pm update

Kaelyn is still in surgery. She is stable. At 3:30 pm the surgeons started connecting the new liver. It will probably be a few more hours to go.

10 am and 12 pm update

As of 10 am this morning Kaelyn was finished with all of the prep work and they were beginning to open her up. As of noon today, all was well and they were removing the old liver. Dr. Healey is performing the resection while Dr. Reyes will be transplanting the new liver.

So far, so good...

She is in, finally...

Okay, hospital time is fairly obnoxious! We arrived yesterday afternoon about 4 pm. They first told us that surgery would start at midnight, then 4 am, they 6:30am and finally they took her in at 8 am. But I guess that is just how it goes. I am just happy that she is finally getting her new liver. When we asked Kaelyn what she was doing today she said, "Getting my new liver!". It was very cute.

Okay will try to update this site every two hours or so. That is when the nurse in the OR will be giving us the newest updates.

Love you all,

Angie

TRANSPLANT DAY!!!!

Today at 2:00 pm we got the call we have been waiting 5 months to get. We have a suitable donor, come into the hospital it's transplant time! So, we have been in here at Children's for quite a few hours just waiting. We were just told that the surgery time is 4:00 am tomorrow morning. I will keep this site updated as soon as I can.

Love to all,

Angie