My loves

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Our family

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Surgery getting closer, finally!


I am  glad the surgery is finally here, admission for bowel prep is for monday.  Not looking forward to the bowel prep, surgery and recovery, all the unknowns :)  but will be glad when it is over and things are a lot easier on Hannah.  And me :) We started scheduling this surgery in October and finally now 5 months later it's happening.
  A lot of friends have asked what she is having done and why.   She is having a cathing stoma done.  They take her appendix, make a tube out of it and use that to connect her bladder and either her belly button or just outside her skin,  this is called a  Cutaneous Appendico-Vesicostomy or Mitrofanoff.   We have to cath Hannah's urine every 4 hours during the day and overnight the nurses leave a catheter in place and it drains in a diaper.  It's hard on her, she cringes every time we do it especially when we pull the catheter out.  I feel so bad for her but she doesn't really urinate on her own, she leaks urine and leaves a lot of residual.  The cathing and an antibiotic everyday keep her from getting UTIs.  She will still leak urine but it will be so much easier to cath her, especially in her wheelchair.  She will come home with a catheter in place for 4 - 6 weeks.  Her urine will drain into a leg bag and at night in a bag on her bed.  After that is taken out we will cath her the new way.    She will be in the hospital for at least  a week to 10 days.  The nurse said they start to feed them about day 2 and she has to tolerate her feedings and have a bowel movement before she can come home.  But we know how Hannah likes to make her own rules!
 Thanks for the continued prayers for Hannah and for our family.  Also pray that Sunday night when we call the ronald mcdonald house they have a room for me on monday.

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