6.19.21 Spinal Fusion Day 5

Second wound drain is out and the dressing has been changed. Seeing the long wound down her back... I am shaking as I type... it is hard to feel hopeful that it will heal smoothly after our previous experience. The surgeon did use a different closure that we have never had experience with before. With her growth rod surgery the wound was closed with steri-strips and then after the initial clean out it was closed with staples. And then the wound vac. This time he used a mesh that is attached with skin glue. Supposed to stay on for a couple weeks. He feels confident that we will have no wound issues this time. We feel anxious. 

She is doing well though. Already at 30% of her food intake and nearly moved completely off of IV pain meds to enteral meds. She has been on bipap all day today, but had lots of breaks yesterday afternoon. We haven’t been able to get her up out of bed yet, but hoping she can try sitting up more today. Yesterday we made it to her tolerating 50 degrees for a time in the bed and we need to make it to at least 70 before she could try her wheelchair. 

Ed and I were discussing this morning how different this would all be right now if we had not been able to squeeze in the ileostomy surgery. We are SOO grateful that we did. Issues that she has not had to work through: stool soiled dressing, laxative volume trials, tolerating sitting up for long colon flushes, sourcing equipment for those flushes, and bloating/belly pain. In this regard, this has been the best surgery experience ever. She came into this at the very top of her game and it shows.