For those who were wondering about Tatiana, here is an update I copied from Carianne's last email:
The game plan: surgery 1: they will insert a prosthetic (balloon) into her lower abdomen. Over time they will pump this balloon up, hoping to increase her skin tissue and also her abdominal cavity. Once the cavity is large enough …
Surgery 2: they will remove the prosthetic, drop the omphalocele (her liver, stomach and bowel that is now on the outside of her body) into the abdominal cavity and hope that the skin stretches enough over the opening. Also over the opening they will use a board type thing to help keep the omphalocele where it is supposed to be, keeping her tummy a normal shape, so it doesn’t pop out.
Surgery 3 + ?: the next surgery or more will be to remove the board and keep stretching the skin till it covers over the opening. It will depend on how fast her skin grows to be able to cover the opening whether it will be 1 or more surgeries.
We went to see her on the weekend. I got to look at her in her little incubator in the NICU, and you'd never guess there was anything wrong. She's adorable, her colour looked good to me, she was wrapped in a blanket so you couldn't see the omphalocele, she was just a little smaller than most babies I've seen (but we tend to have babies the size of toddlers around here!) Carianne was allowed to hold her on the weekend, and was even starting to try to nurse, but that's been stopped now.
My mother in law called tonight to say that Tatiana was supposed to go for surgery today but it had to be cancelled as she is running a fever due to an infection. She is being moved to the hospital in London where her surgeon is, so that she can be wheeled into surgery at a moment's notice if need be. I'm not sure if they know where the infection is.
It seems Carianne was told that the doctor has seen this maybe 10 times in her career, and that anything they've done before hasn't worked too well, so they're trying something different. Understandably, Carianne is having a very rough go. She's staying in London to be near Tatiana, away from her husband, her son and most of her immediate family (although her brother is in London, and some extended family). Please keep praying for Tatiana, or thinking good thoughts, or whatever works for you. She still needs it.
2 comments:
That just breaks my heart. I'll be praying AND thinking good thoughts. Lots of love to Carianne and family.
We're thinking of Carianne and Tatiana everyday and will keep watching for good news to come out of this. Give Carianne hugs for us and tell her to hang in there. If you can think of ANYTHING we can do that would help them all out at this time, make sure to let us know, ok?
Marn
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