I apologize for not posting last night, as I said I would. When we got to our room, the DVD player wouldn't work, Phillips Kindle died, my phone battery was low, and my only option was to give Phillip my laptop. Sooo... No update.
Anywhoo... His pre-op appt went fine (he even did well having blood drawn) and we spend the rest of our day shopping at Target and hanging out in our room at the Ronald McDonald House.
We are sitting in the pre-op/ recovery room at Duke now- waiting for the OR to be ready. We had to be here at 9 and they didn't even get us admitted for the ER until 1030. Ugh. But as they say "it is what it is."
Phillip is in good spirits this morning (especially since his Daddy, Nana and Pops showed up) and only seems a bit nervous.
The procedure should be fairly easy and quick. They will put him to sleep with IV meds and gas, place a breathing tube, make an incision under his left arm, locate the current battery pack, remove & unplug it, hook up the new battery pack (which will be bigger and HOPEFULLY last years longer), put it in place, close him up and be done.
The dr has 100 minutes scheduled for the whole thing. As long as there are no complications it should take just that amount of time.
Now: the last time he had to have his leads replaced (because he broke them) and they ended up having to replace the battery AND the leads because when they hooked up the new leads to the old battery pack- they wouldn't work together for some reason.
We are PRAYING that this doesn't happen again. If he has to have his leads replaced then we will be spending the night and there is 1) a chance that they won't be able to RE- place the leads because of scarring and the small amount of space available to attach on the Vagus nerve. 2) there is a 5-10% chance that he can lose the ability to swallow for a period of time. (Not normally permanent). So we are PRAYING that the battery is all that has to be replaced.
We always appreciate your care/ support/ and prayers. Thank you each for being here, for reading our updates, for praying, everything and anything you do.
UPDATE: They just came and took him back for his surgery. It will take about 20 minutes to get him to sleep and prepped for surgery and then they will let us know that the surgery is starting.
In His Name,
Misty