Marcello's Surgery Day

Thursday January 9, 2014

Today, Manuel’s ventilator began to have problems reading the oxygen levels. The respiratory therapists called for a new O2 cell for the machine. The ventilator technitian changed out the cell, but this did not fix the problem. Therefore, a new ventilator was brought in and he was placed on the new machine. This was hard to watch as he had to be placed on a manual pump and there were two respiratory therapists working on keeping him breathing and changing out the equipment. This time the ventilator worked and he was placed back on the ventilator. The remainder of the day Manuel remained stable and Mommy was able to help with Manuel’s hands on tonight (temperature, diaper change, and holding).

We arrived to the NICU a little before 6:30 AM to meet with Dr. Abraham and his surgical team. Pastor Lepley arrived and we were able to pray over Marcello and Manuel before the surgical team’s arrival. Once Dr. Abraham arrived, he informed us of the details of the surgery and that the entire procedure was expected to take less than 20 minutes. We signed the consent after our discussion and then we waited in the family lounge with Pastor Lepley and shared some scripture and discussion.

After 30 minutes, Dr. Abraham came into the lounge and informed us that the procedure was complete and that Marcello did wonderful during the surgery. The next 24 hours will be critical for his survival and that he will be closely monitored to ensure that his little body is accepting the new flow of blood as it will reach areas of the body that had not previously received the proper flow of blood.

The other issue we have been monitoring with Marcello has been with his stoma. This afternoon, Marcello’s nurse saw what she thought to be discharge from his stoma and asked Dr. Kokoska to come look at it. Dr. Kokoska came by and inspected Marcello’s stoma and was happy to see that indeed Marcello’s stoma had indeed excreted what looked like meconium (poop).  He would continue to monitor to ensure that the stoma indeed was still functioning, but for now we can accept this as a small victory (VICTORY DANCE EVERYONE!!!).

Daddy holding Marcello

Daddy was allowed to do his first hands-on with Marcello today and was able to check Marcello’s temperature, change his diaper (with the help of the nurse) and Daddy was able to hold Marcello tonight for the first time.  This was such a touching moment for Daddy as Marcello reached out and tightly held daddy’s fingers in gesture to say “I’m going to be OK daddy.”

This evening, we found out that Pastor Lepley had written a letter on his blog about our experience. We were humbled by his words, and wanted to share with you his letter. To see his letter click here or copy the following URL into a new Internet window: http://onourorigins.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/born-premature-and-patiently-waiting-on-the-lord/

We continue to be amazed at God's healing power and are so grateful that He has afforded us yet another day with them. Continued prayers that God will continue to bestow His healing hands over Marcello and Manuel.