Thursday, March 13, 2008

Hypochloremic hypokalemic metabolic alkalosis

So. Joe and I are currently in the pediatric surgical suite waiting room at Strong, and Graham is in surgery. He's okay, he'll be absolutely fine, but we're just dazed and overwhelmed. The back story is that Graham was spitting up a lot more yesterday than usual, and then started really projectile vomiting everything we tried to give him. We talked to the pediatrician on call, and he suggested small amounts of Pedialyte at a time, hoping that this was just some stomach bug and we wouldn't have to go to the emergency room for IV fluids. That lasted about 45 minutes before Graham tossed all that up as well. So off to the emergency room we went. We tried some Pedialyte there as well, and no dice. So IV fluids got started. And in the interim, the attendings decided it would be worth getting an upper GI (my poor baby had to take a barium bottle) to make sure he didn't have an obstruction of some kind that was causing the vomiting. And lo, he has pyloric stenosis, the very thing we were all secretly worried about. The only real solution to pyloric stenosis is surgery, as you can't very well leave the sad little babies to their projectile vomiting. So he is now in surgery. And he also got diagnosed with a hernia earlier in the week, so he is having a pyloromyotomy, inguinal hernia repair, and repair of his bilateral hydroceles. All at once. Lord, hasn't this baby been through enough?

The good aspects to this are as follows: I know the surgeon, and have actually seen him perform these very surgeries multiple times (we're Druginating, for those in the know). I absolutely trust that the outcome will be good. Secondly, I know Graham will be a lot more comfortable after the surgery. I've seen babies go from absolutely miserable to miraculously thriving within a day after this. All this stuff that we thought was reflux - the choking on his saliva at night, the spitting up, the pain that seemed to come with his increasing feeds - will be resolved. And because they are doing all the surgeries at once, he won't have to go through the risks of anesthesia multiple times. And lastly, this is all happening while he is way too small to imprint pain and suffering. It'll just be us who remember how ridiculous this time in his life was, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We would gladly throw ourselves under the knife if we could spare him some of this.

So right now, we're just waiting. He should be out of surgery around 6 pm. We'll update more later. And we'll very happily take any good wishes you might want to send our baby boy's way.

Love to all,
Sarah, Joe and Graham

2 comments:

Alena said...

Poor Graham! I'm sending a thousand good wishes and virtual hugs to him and you guys. Hopefully you'll have a very happy little guy on your hands soon. No more of that vomiting stuff. Good luck!

Maggie said...

lucy, pete & i are all thinking of you guys and sending our best wishes, prayers, and hugs to graham! he'll pull through this splendidly, we know - he has to, with such great parents. all the Bucks send their love...
-mags.