My new favorite picture

This photograph below was taken about one hour after Jerry had surgery for volvulus.   His intestines had twisted around the superior mesenteric artery.  This blocked his digestion and caused vomiting.  Around 6pm on Wednesday, it just seemed like he was spitting up more than usual, both in frequency and volume.  It was often coming out his nose as well as his mouth.  It only seemed to bother him about half the time.  Jerry is usually a "happy spitter."    His spit up was yellow, it was usually white.  By about 3am it had started to look green.  The guidance I found online said that spit up/ vomit in infants can be yellow and was nothing to worry about.   You only needed medical attention it was green or brown.  I convinced myself that it was just a brighter yellow.  By 5am it was green like a grass stain.  I was worried he was getting dehydrated.  His diaper had red dust in it the last changing. 


After a call to the doctor's office we went to the emergency room.  I was thinking he might have a stomach bug, despite the fact that he did not have a fever.  I had read about pyloric stenosis on my Droid while I held Gerald in the middle of the night.  I thought it might be that but one article had said something about the spit up NOT being green if that was the cause.  The first doctor and nurse team we saw thought it might be a UTI and put Jerry through a rather painful catheter process....that didn't capture enough urine for a culture. The nurse asked us to get her if he vomited again so she could see the color.  I told her I had brought the onesie he had green throw up on if she wanted to see that.  She said they were only interested in what he was doing now.  


At 8am a new team took over.  The new nurse also asked for something he had thrown up on.  I handed her his current burp cloth, covered in yellow spit up.  I also offered her the soiled onesie.  She took it and we could hear her shout to the doctor as she stepped out of the room, "It's neon green."  Within minutes we were being told that Gerald may have an intestinal obstruction and the surgical team had been called.  We went to radiology and saw the obstruction.  At this point, I was happy to have a diagnosis.  I wasn't thrilled that my 5 week old needed to have surgery, but I figured we were on the right path with the only worry being the risks of surgery.  


We went back down to the ER to wait for the surgical consult.  This is when it was explained to us that he would have emergency surgery and that there was a risk of his bowel dying because the blood flow was cut off.  It may already be dead.  This is a life threatening situation.  I was on a gurney holding him at the time and didn't let him go again until we handed him to the anesthesiologist.  The next 2 hours or so were awful.  I was on the brink of tears but I just wanted to distract myself from thinking about something I had no control over.  


Then we saw the surgeon again.  Gerald did well.  There was no necrosis of the intestine.  They were able to. extubate him in the operating room.  We could see him.  And here is the photo of when i saw him again.  I knew he was okay.





He's doing very well now.  He is acting like himself again.  He is off morphine.  He has 2 fewer IVs than he had .on Thursday.  He should be able to eat again on Tuesday.   We're not sure when he will be coming home; it may be another week in the hospital.  He will have an increased chance of a bowel obstruction for the rest of his life.  He is no longer has his appendix.  And he will have a cool scar to show off to the other kids.


I tried to find out online what the mortality rate is for volvulus.  I saw stats that ranged from 9-15%.  I'm really glad I didn't know that until after we knew he was okay.