Surgery/Procedures

Today Ari had multiple procedure's done: bronchoscopy, airway dilation, endoscopy, pH probe inserted, biopsies were taken, and tubes put in her ears. The bronchoscopy and endoscopy were scopes/cameras that they put in to look at her airway, stomach, and small intestine.

Her airway was very narrow and they had a hard time getting the tubes in, so the doctor decided to dilate her airway with a balloon dilator. We got pictures of her airway before and after; in the after pictures her airway looked red and irritated. She also had a bump in the airway which he scrapped. The Dr. also saw her adenoids are large, so he wants to take them out in the next month or two and dilate her airway again. He feels she may need airway reconstruction, but wants to try to dilate her a few times before decide to reconstruct. So the down side, this is the first of one or more surgeries. On the up side, she will breathe easier.

During the endoscopy they looked at her stomach and small intestine and inserted a pH probe thru her nose to check her pH levels. The probe is in for 24 hrs, therefore both hands are covered since she wants to pull the tube out of her nose. Basically they want to see if she's having reflux problems which would complicate her airway issues. In a week she's going to have other GI test in the office and we should have results in the next few weeks for the tests and biopsies.

Since she's had numerous ear drum ruptures and fluid build up in her ears, they put tubes in. This was the simplest of all.

Carlos and I have handled this pretty well. We ended up waiting almost 6 hrs after the time they had given us for her surgery. So we were getting very frustrated, especially since she hadn't eaten anything all day. God in His greatness allowed Ariana to sleep thru most of our wait and then she woke up happy and smiling, in spite of her hunger. She was a perfect example to us of patience and grace. The nurses and doctors thanked us for our patience, even though we didn't feel like we were being patient. But the nurse said, "Believe me, you guys were very patient." So I was grateful that's what she saw, inside I didn't feel like it.

My biggest struggle was if I'd have to see her back on a ventilator and although she was on a ventilator, they were able to remove it before we saw her. She was in pain and cried a lot. They gave her pain medicine which calmed her and once she had fluids around 8pm, she fell asleep and has been sleeping ever since.

God has been so good to us in all this. He has given us so much strength, He is faithful! We are so blessed to have Ari in our lives, even if I have spent the past 2 Mother's Day in a hospital with her ;o)