The wheels on the ambulance

So the past couple of days have been a bit hectic, hence no blog entries for a while.

As you know little man wasn't well and ended up coming down with an infection in his bowel and a distended tummy on Saturday night/Sunday. On Monday morning Jensen was transferred to Westmead children's hospital to be close to the surgeons should he need his hernia operated on. At that stage it was a precautionary measure, as Dr Mary had a lot of trouble reducing it overnight.

I called Phil to let him know NETS were coming to pick Jensen up and before I knew it they had arrived. Phil hadn't even turned up yet. We knew it was a long process so thankfully daddy turned up in time. He wasn't handling being touched very well at first, but had the best of the best doctor with him upon transfer. Mummy rode shot gun in the ambulance with Jensen in his transportation device in the back with the doctor and nurse. I've never been so nervous in a vehicle (nor have I been in an ambulance) before.

We arrived at the hospital, shortly followed by daddy, and were set up in the NICU there, called Grace Ward.

The surgeon came to look, and was able to reduce his hernia so said there was no need for surgery. Phil and I breathed a sigh of relief. They were just going to keep an eye on his tummy. Next thing we knew the head surgeon came to see Jensen and bam ... he was on his way to theatre. The surgeon seemed very blasé about the whole thing which made us feel more at ease and we were both strangely calm. It was just a case of looking at his bowel through an incision in his abdomen if necessary and while they had him there were going to fix up the hernia. A two hour procedure by a very confident team. Phil and I said 'see you in a little while' to our Jensen and began the wait. We sat outside and prayed to our angels and looked strange, I guess kissing our phones (Jensen screen savers). We then sat in the car biding the time.

At around 10pm we hadn't heard anything. It had been 2 hours. We headed back into the ward and were told he didn't leave for theatre until 9pm. So we went and waited nervously in the parent lounge. I got the call at 11pm to say that the surgery was complete, he was fine, and on his way back to the ward. The surgeon had then got called into emergency surgery so we waited another hour or so for her to come and gives us the details. She said they didn't go into the abdomen as his bowel looked ok and they believed the hernia to be the issue not NEC. The hernia had been reducible initially, but in theatre there was a bowel loop under a knuckle of bowel that had not been reducible, otherwise known as an incarcerated hernia. This is what has been causing him pain. The surgeon tucked up the bowel and closed the hole. The hole is there to allow the testicle to drop, and in Jensen's case, this is where a bowel loop had snuck through. Now that the hole has been closed (his testicle has come through) the hernia shouldn't return. They also found some old milk curd obstructing his colon, so the surgeon massaged it down and we now wait for it to pass through naturally. This could be from the fortification of his milk, and would be the major cause of his distended tummy, and discomfort. NEC stands for Necrotizing Enterocolitis which is when part of the bowel dies and needs to be removed. It can be common in preemies as they are required to commence feeding before their gut is mature enough. The doctors have mentioned this at times of other infections, being that it could be the issue, luckily for us, it wasn't.

We said goodnight to our little super star and headed home for a short sleep. Such a long day.

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