14) The longest day ever...

The day had come! Wil's 'big' surgery was finally here, May of 2001. We were nervous about the surgery yet excited at the possibilities that lay ahead. The pictures below show what Wil looked like before surgery. Remember 'the beginning' pictures when the doctors had to put skin grafts over Wil's abdomen. The left pic is that skin. The right pic shows his bladder and urethra. The bladder is split in two and the urethra is in the middle and looks like a flat tongue. There is a dimple where his rectum should be. At this time Wil had still never had a bath, well, he had never been submerged into water (bathtubs, swimming, etc.). We had to be careful that nothing came in contact with his bladder. It was always nerve racking when his ostomy bag leaked. Also at this time Wil still could not move by himself. He was unable to crawl and rolling was difficult. It was hard to believe that he was a year and half old. His mobility was delayed by his severe hip displasia. If you look at the pics below you can see how his hips lay out. At the time it was impossible to close his legs (leg to leg could not touch). I remember right before the surgery Saige was worried that they were going to take his legs and not give them back so the nurses let him mark both of Wil's feet with a marker so when the surgery was over he would be able to tell that the legs were still Wil's. It was cute!


The surgery went well, it lasted about 14 hours (if memory serves correctly). I just remember that it started in the early morning and he wasn't in ICU until about 10 that night. It was one of the longest days we've ever had. The orthopedic surgeon said that Wil would have to be in traction for at least 3 - 4 weeks. (they cut his hips apart and realigned them). The doctors did not want any movement from Wil because they wanted his hips to heal correctly, they had him paralyzed and sedated for the 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately, because of the medications he was on plus the surgery he was very swollen (water retention) and doubled in size. The nurses tried to rotate his head but unfortunately either the first few days of recovery or while the surgery was going on Wil had gotten a bed sore on the back of his head. It took months to heal and to this day he has a scar a little bit bigger than a half dollar and no hair in that area. Just a little souvenir from that day. The picture below is a pic of Wil in traction. The had his legs hanging as close to a 90 degree angle as possible. His stomach situation made it difficult to actually be at 90 degrees but they did what they were able to do with what they were given.
The top picture below is showing Wil's stomach. The surgeons had to apply the skin graft again to heal over his abdomen. I remember the plastic surgeon saying we've done this surgery twice now at this hospital and both times have been on Wil. The bottom pic show that his bladder is now closed up. They put the bladder together as well as the urethra. They had a catheter in at the time.

During this time I was once again seperated from Bryan and Saige. I was staying at the Ronald McDonald house again. I'm so thankful for that place. Anyway, I found out that we were pregnant. It was not a planned pregnancy and I was terrified of having to take care of Wil and a newborn and even more terrified that this baby could have some problems too. The timing (for me) was not good, I cried the night I found out and the next day called Bryan, he was really quiet. We both were terrified of anymore responsibility and the possibility of having to go through all of this again or just going through all of this with a newborn. It took a few weeks to adjust and to respond to the situation the right way, the way we should of at first, just trust in the Lord. Easy as it sounds it's one of the most difficult things to do. After several weeks Wil was able to come out of his medicated 'coma'. It took another three weeks to fully recover to come home. We spent Saige's fourth birthday in Indy this summer. We took him to the Indianapolis zoo and the next day we found a Chuckee Cheese and then went to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cake. My brother had his second child (Mason) while we were in the hospital too. It was a very eventful summer. We were all so happy to come home!