Surgery

My little niece Phoenix had surgery today!  The poor little thing has been having nothing but problems since she was born and they decided that surgery was the best option for her right now!  She is 18 months old and all she can eat is Pediasure and some puffs once in a while.  If you follow my blog, you know that she was in the hospital for a week several months ago because she would not eat and kept throwing up.  Well, she is a little trooper, that's for sure.  She was born with a Tracheoesophogial Fistula, otherwise explained as her esophagus not being connected to her stomach so she had surgery for that at 1 day old.  She was also diagnosed with Neuroblastoma which has slowly went away without treatment (Thank You Lord!).

After genetic testing, it was determined that she has an extra 11th chromosome which is causing all her problems.  So now after many doctors and many tests over the course of these past few months, they determined that she has too much acid coming up her esophagus, thus causing pain and then she does not want to eat.  So sorry for my non medical explanation but today they went into her stomach and stapled it so that her esophagus "seems" longer and then twisted her stomach 180 degrees.  Their goal is for the acid to stay in her stomach.  The only complication was that the doctor punctured her stomach during the surgery today (which he says has never happened before in the 30 years he has been doing this surgery) but thankfully he caught it and sutured it before ending the surgery.  So now she will remain in the hospital for several days and then hopefully be on her way home! 

 She is such a strong little bugger! She was so medicated when I went to visit her today that she intentionally covered her eyes because she just wanted to sleep!  Oh, how she takes on the traits of her mother :)   Prayers are really appreciated at this time!