Surgery Update 1

Thank you to everyone who is praying and thinking of our sweet Julia today! ❤

This morning was an early start for all of us. We had to check in at 6am for a 7:30am surgery. I was grateful to be able to stay with Julia until the last possible minute. I walked her to the operating room and held her hands while she fell asleep.

When Julia had her bladder repair surgery a year ago, we learned that she does not have a clear airway to be intubated. It took several hours for them to intubate her before anything started.

This time around we were prepared and Sean and I reminded everyone that we were told Julia needed an ENT to do the intubation. This morning the anesthesiologist told me they were going to try a new device to assist in the intubation before bringing in an ENT.

I questioned this as multiple attempts can cause swelling, but the anesthesiologist said if we can do this it will make future procedures for Julia a little easier. Well, it worked! The first try went in without a problem.

We receive updates from a nurse every 90 minutes, which is wonderful. So far Dr. Borer (Urology) did his exam and stopped by to tell us that Julia has healed beautifully from her surgery last year and looks great.

Plastic surgeon number 1, Dr. Taghinia, worked on her left hand and foot. For those of you who don’t know, Julia was born with her left middle and ring fingers fused together, and her left toes do not all lay flat. Her third toe actually points down which was the focus of her surgery today.

Dr. Taghinia came to see us when he was done and told us that everything went smoothly. Her two fingers are now separated and he did some work with the tendon attached to the third toe to bring it up. Julia is now rocking two pink casts.

Next up is Dr. Mulliken, plastic surgeon number 2. He specializes in facial reconstruction and is working on two parts. The left corner of her mouth is not a tight corner, it is more rounded which causes her to leak some while eating. He is doing a commissure repair of her mouth.

The other part of her surgery is on her nose. She has a strip of skin that runs down the middle of her nose that he is working on bringing together. That part of the surgery is currently in progress so we will update everyone with how it went when we can.

When she is all done she will spend the night in the ICU and possibly be discharged tomorrow, though we will wait and see how she feels. Thank you again for the thoughts and prayers! xoxo, Tori

4 Replies to “Surgery Update 1”

  1. Thank you so much for sharing this. I have followed your updates since the beginning and am amazed by how knowledgeable you have become with all of this. Praying all goes well for Julia

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *