Surgery Details

Okay, so I talked with the surgeon yesterday and he explained the procedure to me and why we need to do it so quickly. The bile duct that we had the drains in a few years ago are not draining. The past few years they were draining only a trickle at a time into the common bile duct, but it was enough. Now the place that it was draining from is totally closed off. He said that they will have to make about a 5 or 6 inch incision in her abdomen, go into her liver and create a new duct (his words - boar a hole in her liver - sounds scary) from this undraining bile duct to the common bile duct. Luckily the bile duct that needs to be drained is very large because of all of the back up, I guess this helps. He said that there could definitely be complications, like leakage or if he even nicks or messes with the main portal vein their could be problems. The main portal vein is basically the only blood supply to her liver since her hepatic artery was blocked at transplant. The other complication may be her lungs. Since she has had the flu her lungs are not so strong. She may have to spend some time in the ICU intubated (with a breathing tube). Also, not fun. But he believes that we need to do this surgery as soon as possible. If we wait,like the anesthesiologist want to, the liver will start to deteriorate even more causing more damage to the liver tissue and making it harder to operate. Also if we wait she will most definitely get an infection and have to have drains placed, which is not a fix only a bandaid. And we all now how hard it is to have drains. When she had them the last time, she was in and out of the hospital every two weeks with drain replacements, infections, IV antibiotics and other craziness. Hopefully everything will go well. And we can have our pink, happy little girl back.

She will go into surgery tomorrow morning, I am not sure what time exactly. I will post updates tomorrow.

Angie