WE HAVE THE OKIE DOKIE FOR SURGERY - OH BOY

I think I said over a week ago I would update on all of Colby's medical blah-blah. You know me, always running, just always running behind. It's been crazy, so I'll get to blogging and you get to reading.

Colby is READY and CLEARED for surgery. We went up to Cincinnati Children's last Thursday. First we met with the ortho surgeon to discuss what surgery would be best for Colby - VEPTR (rib) surgery or rod (spine) surgery. The decision is spinal rod surgery. The surgeon and pulmonologist agree it's not Colby's ribs that are messed up, it's his spine. It is curving inward. Their theory is fix the spine, and his airways will in turn be fixed also. It's pretty much 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Both surgeries take about the same amount of time to do (2-3 hours). The recovery time is about the same (10-12 weeks). So if they think spine surgery would better benefit Colby, who am I to argue? Plus, we were able to keep the same surgery date, June 25.   

Colby had to get spine x-rays also. Actually his curve really isn't that bad, only around 30 degrees. But we have to do something to get those airways on the right side opened up. Hopefully this spine surgery is the answer. Then we met with the hematologist. The dreaded hematology appointment. The hematologist really is a sweet old man, but seriously, I was going to throat punch him if he started some crap and tried to say that Colby has a clotting disorder. We only needed one blood test repeated, all the others were WNL. That's within normal limits for all you non-medical people. Colby's PTT was off the charts abnormal when we had it done from his port back on April 1. So we agreed that this time we would get a peripheral draw for the PTT. We also needed pre-infusion labs and it made sense to get them at the same time. They agreed to call VAT (vascular access team) to do the labs. We had to wait over an over for them to get there, but it was worth it. The lady from VAT was excellent. She found a vein in Colby's foot and got him accessed on the 1st try. Sweet! The normal PTT was the last piece of the puzzle we were waiting on to get cleared for surgery, and ta-da, it came back normal! However, Colby's ORSA test came back positive. Somehow I knew it would. No way this kid is ever going to be cleared from MRSA and ORSA. Just don't see it happening. What does this mean? It means every other day before surgery, for a week, he has to take a bath with special soap, hexachlorophene to be exact. We'll also get a prescription for some medication that we'll have to put it in Colby's nostrils twice a day for a week prior to surgery. Or was it 2 weeks? Whatev, I can't remember. I'm sure they'll tell me again.   

Once I knew Colby was cleared for surgery, I called and talked to the ortho nurse. I told her it was time to poop or get off the pot. Colby is ready for surgery. He's as healthy as he can be. Let's do this. I told her if anyone else's surgery gets cancelled, please keep us in mind and could we have their spot, moving Colby's surgery date up. So if I blog and say hey, we're going to Cincinnati in a couple of weeks, no it's not a joke, and no, it doesn't mean I've been drinking. Hopefully we'll get that call. We've been waiting for a year now for this surgery. Some of that was Cincinnati's doing, some of it was mine. I've accepted the fact that Colby has to have this surgery, and now all of Colby's specialist have given him the green light and all his labs are normal. No use prolonging the inevitable, correct?

So there's more stuff that has been going on with Colby, but I'm going to wrap this blog up for now. It's getting lengthy and I'm getting sleepy. Plus Colby needs tucked in, and I never miss the chance to do that for my sweet boy. More Colby news soon. He's a busy, busy boy for sure.