The Tietjen Family

Just for the record, I do not go around wearing ginormous flowers on my head...

we were at a Halloween party.

So before I literally fall asleep sitting up I wanted to post about Devins surgery. The Dr's worked on him for a little over 4 hours; longest 4 hours of my life! I am SO grateful my parents hung out with me the whole time helping to make the time go quicker. Finally the surgeon came out and filled us in on what is going on. From all of the procedures Devin has had done on his esophagus it has transformed it into a non healthy, abnormal esophagus. At the bottom where it should be very thin and pliable, it is like a piece of leather and very very thick. So think in fact that they think that the tear is in there, but didn't go all the way through. He had lots of air in his chest cavity on both sides, which they removed as well as decompressing his stomach (taking all the fluids out) The cut him open (which the nurse just informed me that it is said that this surgery is a more painful recovery than open heart surgery because of the muscles they have to cut through) and went in through his side to try and repair the tear, but were not able to find it. So here we sit in the ICU, a chest tube on both sides for everything to continue to drain, a huge incision, a feeding tube out his stomach, the ventilator coming out him mouth, another tube out his nose, heart monitors, cuffs on his legs to keep the circulation going and an IV in his wrist and vein in his neck. WOW! A lot to take in that's for sure!

It is all just a waiting game now. He will be here for 2 weeks, no food, no water, to allow everything to heal. The hope is that his body will heal itself and poof, no more tear. They will do some tests in two weeks to find out if that works, if it doesn't work, it will be a really big bad surgery where they will remove his esophagus. So I am trying to stay focused on where all my kids are and pray that he gets better. It's going to be one day at a time. I have been the most sad all day that he has NO IDEA that any of this is going on. The last thing he knows is that they were putting in a tube to help him breathe, he is not going to be a very happy camper tomorrow...rightfully so!