The Kid Wanted His Intestines Hanging Out and He Gets What He Wants

Landon was up and down after the drain went in. After about 5 days of antibiotics to try to kill the infection and the drain allowing the stomach contents to come out, it became apparent that he was not going to get better on his own. He stomach continued to be swollen and a dusky grey black color. He was in obvious pain and something needed to be done. We knew that he would need the surgery to cut out the parts of the bowel that were causing the issues. The worst part was that the surgeons had no idea if it would just be a small portion of his bowel or the entire thing. We would just have to wait and see. To add to the stress of the situation, the pediatric surgeon on call for this week was a surgeon who operated on me as a child leaving me with lifelong complications. I knew that the hospital we were at would only hire the best of the best, but it was hard to get over the fear of this same surgeon operating on my son.

I finally decided to bring up my concerns to Landon's doctors and it was decided that it would be best for another surgeon to perform the surgery. It was one less thing to worry about. We signed the consents for them to work on Landon and went to the waiting room to wait on the results of the 3 hour surgery. We wondered if we made the right choice, if we should have waited to give him another day or two to heal on his own. We wondered if he would be ok or would have short bowel syndrome due to the large amount of intestine they may have to remove. It was a scary time, and we said our fair share of prayers.

Finally, our nurse called us to say the surgeons wanted to speak with us. That didn't seem like a good sign, but maybe it was something they always did after surgery. When we went into the conference room they told us that the good news is there was only a small hole and they were able to remove the piece of bowel where it was located. Then came the bad news. When they tried to close the wound, Landon's oxygen levels and blood pressure plummeted. They believed it was because his intestines were so swollen from the infection that they were putting pressure on his lungs and his heart. Due to this, they decided to LEAVE THE WOUND OPEN! They were telling me that my son was currently laying there with his intestines hanging out for all the world to see. I couldn't even imagine the reality of this. They told us that this is something that could happen and it wouldn't be forever, just until the swelling went down. They tried to convince me that it is actually easier with the wound open because they can stay on top of thE status of his insides. They did say they were very worried about his prognosis. We left the room to see our son, terrified about what we would see.

It is funny how what you can handle and tolerate changes with crisis. I never knew I could handle the reality of my son's insides on the outside, but I did. To tell you the truth it actually wasn't too bad. There was some dressing over the wound and baby intestines are no where near as gross as big people intestines. You could almost pretend that the situation wasn't as horrific as it was. We knew it was bad when most of his doctors came to tell us how sorry they were and the hospital's social worker came to see how we were coping.

They set up a room for us across the NICU because of his tenuous state. I stayed up until midnight helping the nurses clean up his bedding and trying to wet his mouth to make him more comfortable. He was sedated and paralyzed but I like to believe he knew I was there. Eventually, the nurses told me to get some sleep and that they would wake me if anything happened. I spent the night begging God to heal my son, to give me one more day with him and anxiously listening for that knock on my door. The knock never came, he was able to stabilize and do much better than his surgeons and doctors expected. Our prayers had been answered for one more day.