Tuesday, December 02, 2008

My paw paw

First, I'd like to thank you all for keeping my family and me in your thoughts and prayers.
The surgery was a little more than three hours and was incredibly intense. They removed his colon and did an ileostomy, and also removed his spleen and gall bladder. His bowel was perforated and his entire belly was pretty much full of blood, and many other "secretions" (I'll keep it at that for those of you with weak stomachs). They've inserted a feeding tube directly into his small intestine and will begin using that in a couple of days to provide nutrition. They are using a "wound vac" to minimize the risk of infection. During the procedure, they went through 4 units of whole blood, 20 units of platelets and 4 units of fresh frozen plasma. This is in addition to the 7 units of whole blood and 4 units of platelets they used yesterday. He's till not out of the woods, as the risk of infection is really high. At this point, the Dr's believe this was caused by vascular disease and/or atrial fibrillation.
Thanks again.