I wanted to leave a few tidbits for anyone interested in what Mateo's surgery might entail. First off, he will have a central line placed as an IV. This is surgically placed in his chest, to avoid having to poke him several times to keep TPN going... TPN is Total Perenteral Nutrition. It takes the place of food while his bowels heal from surgery. Then Dr Wadie will do an exploratory surgery to figure out where the distended (swollen) bowel is at. If it is in the distal bowel (the lower end), that would be the best case scenerio. He could just remove this section of intestine, as it is not functioning anyways, due to the lack of ganglion cells due to Hirschsprungs Disease. If it is in the upper portion of his bowel, Dr Wadie will do what is called the STEP Procedure, which will narrow and lengthen this distended portion. This could be beneficiary to Mateo because it will help bacterial overgrowth and also give him more length of bowel to absorb more nutrients and have firmer stool.
Here is a link to see a little bit of info on the step procedure.
http://www.childrenshospital.org/cfapps/step/index.cfm
Mateo's surgery is scheduled for October 7th at Riverbend. We are looking at around a week of hospitalization... Please keep those prayers and well wishes coming!
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