Nissen surgery, NOT.

Well, unfortunately, things didn’t work out quite the way we wanted it to today. We got to MCV and went through the normal pre-op stuff.

Long story short:

The DaVinci robot that is used for this surgery was broken. Of course, they have to wait for the company’s rep to come out and troubleshoot the problem. Turns out they need to order a part. So, the surgeon came to let us know our options.

1. Cancel the surgery and reschedule for next Monday (he only does surgery on Mondays). The chances of saving her current g-tube site are about 80% with the DaVinci robot.

2. Proceed with the procedure without the robot. He would still try to do it laproscopically. The chances of saving her current g-tube site are about 65% without the DaVinci robot.

We chose option 1. To me, saving her g-tube site is a big deal. She is already covered in scars and one day it is going to matter to her.

After spending a lot of time with the anesthesiologists, we learned some new things about this procedure. In order to do the surgery, the surgeon has to fill her abdomen up with CO2 (carbon dioxide). This might adversely affect her circulation, due to her heart issues. If they get in there and doing it that way starts to affect her in a negative way, they will have to stop and go to the open incision procedure. Clearly, we don’t want this to happen for many reasons.

So, even though we might end up not being able to use the robot anyway, we decided that starting with the best chances was a better way to go. The surgeon checked his schedule for next Monday and bumped everyone back so Harlie could be first.

They all felt really bad about having us go through everything and get all geared up and ready for this surgery – for nothing. But, we told them we would rather it be right and at least this time we are still in the same city – so it really wasn’t THAT big of a deal. Last time we went ready for surgery and it didn’t happen it was up in DC and we drove up at 4pm and left to come home at midnight. So, in comparison, it’s not a big deal. Just another week of vomiting when I had hoped we were finally done with it for good. Oh well. Patience. Lots and lots of patience.

Thanks for all your well wishes posted on the guestbook (and e-mails and phone calls). I really appreciate it. We’ll just try it all again – same time next week!!! Ugh. Oh! And Happy Birthday, Tom!

Take care,
Christy