Saturday, August 20, 2011

A bit of a setback...

McKinley watching Auntie Erin at her bike race last week :)
Last week McKinley had a procedure called a contrast enema done. They basically ran a bunch of barium (liquid you can see on an xray) through her bowels and intestines to see if there were any blockages and make sure she would be ready for her surgery on the 24th.  During that procedure they saw what looked like a narrowing of the lower intestine but were very hopeful that it wasn't as serious as it looked.  So yesterday McKinley had a last minute procedure where they had to put her under anesthesia and scope her rectum/lower intestines to get a better look at what might be going on.  And what they found was what we prayed they wouldn't find.  The scar tissue from her last surgery is causing a narrowing of her lower intestine.  If she were to need to pass something through there it most likely would get stuck and cause a blockage.  So Dr Healey determined that her surgery next week will need to be postponed and we are going to try to manually dilate that area in the hopes that we can reschedule the surgery in 2 - 4 weeks.  We will be meeting with Dr Healey on Tuesday so he can show us exactly what he needs for us to do, but it doesn't sound fun at all.  Not for us, and especially not for McKinley.  If our dilation's don't work then she will require a surgery to open up this area before her surgery to take down her ileostomy.  That would mean we're looking at another 2-3 months with the bags!  Nooooo!!!!  So, that is where we are for now.  McKinley on the other hand is happy as a clam.  She came out of her anesthesia grabbing for all the nurses glasses and IV lines, cracking everyone up.  I was told to expect 2-4 hrs in the recovery room and they let us go in less than a half an hour.  That girl is such a trooper!  Hopefully we will know more soon about what our next steps are and I will keep you posted.

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