Surgery update 4.16.07

So I finished up preparing to leave around 2am, with the alarm set at 3. We needed to leave by 3:30 to get to the hospital on time for Maddie’s admission process. With all of the rain on Sunday the Raritan had been rising rapidly through the night. When I returned around 11:30pm, the water was starting to creep up our driveway, making it difficult to get home from work. I contemplated getting Maddie up then and starting out, however, decided to finish up a few things first. When Maddie and I did leave, the water had risen substantially. As we approached the bottom of the driveway, we had to make a decision to either plunge forward through the 2-3 feet of water, or call it off for Maddie and reschedule. We forged forth, enduring just 2 challenging “deep water” sections of road, a detour in Princeton, and once we were on 95 south we sailed down to CHOP, actually making it on time.

As I write this Maddie is now in her 5th hour of surgery. I keep getting reports of closings. Timothy was closed for the kids, Duke Farms closed for the day, Bound Brook, Somerville and Zarephath campus had to be evacuated! A state of emergency declared by acting governor Cody, with Corzine getting his last respiratory surgery today, dozens shot at Virginia Tech...its all crazy, man. Most of the staff at the hospital telling adventurous stories of their arrival to work this morning, or of co-workers that could not make it in at all. Flooding, traffic, trees down everywhere, sounds insane. Maddie and I prayed for people on the way down to the hospital. For those evacuated, for Chris Aquila and his family, who had to leave their home with water claiming their new furniture and possessions, seeking refuge for tonight.

Maddie got admitted immediately, and for about 30 minutes we had a chance to talk and I read some of her new “Babe Ruth” book to her. She started to laugh so much that when the anesthesia team came to see us they were a bit confused, pondering whether or not someone had already given her the “giggle juice” as they call it (she would later confuse them further when she opted NOT to have the mild sedative at all, skipping right to the “funny gas”). About 4 hours into it, a nurse called me to say that so far Maddie was doing fine and the procedure was going well. Today she was having procedures to correct the drainage from her kidneys to the bladder, splicing her right ureter to the left. Dr. Canning was also going to test the bladder and place a superpubic tube in the front. Our hope is that after testing, Maddie will be able to “lose” the nephrostemy tube coming out of her back (currently draining her right kidney). Today she is supposed to have a 7-9 inch vertical incision that will cut through the abdominal muscle, displace the intestines in order to work on the ureters. Her recovery time in the hospital is supposed to be 6-7 days and 3 weeks out of school when she gets home. After full recovery (and hopefully some softball), we will explore Maddie’s bladder issues.