Blessing
I hadn't written about it, but in the past couple of days, my brother Josh has been in what they call in medical terms, "deep shit". A few posts back, I wrote about how the group home he was headed to wouldn't accept him without a feeding tube. Well, mom caved and brought him in for surgery last Tuesday.
The surgery was okay up until they were ready to install the feeding apparatus. It perforated his stomach and went into his peritoneal cavity, which immediately began inflating. The surgeons, concerned about peritonitis (which could easily kill someone in fragile health like my brother), immediately stopped the surgery, and decided they would redo it the following week. Mom was impressed that they had the stones to come out and say that they had screwed up rather than continue and risk really harming him.
So they sent him home, and he deteriorated overnight. His O2 sats were really low, and so they brought him in the hospital. They had him on 10 liters of oxygen (my grandmother was on 4, and she has emphysema), when they decided they had to do a procedure to draw out the oxygen out of his gut with a needle. In the CT scan, they saw that the air in his peritoneum was crushing the left lobe of his lung. He immediately began feeling better once the air escaped.
However, then he developed an ilias (sp), or a blockage in his gut from being unable to eat and as a result of the surgery. Because he absolutely HAS to eat his formula regularly, or he dies, they had to do an emergency feeding tube installation.
They brought him in last night, and the surgery was a complete success. He was extubated and breathing on his own in no time.
As for the aid who was unwilling to work with Josh, there is a tiny part of me, the eye for an eye part of me, that wants her to get poked in the gut twice, develop pneumonia, struggle for air, develop subsequent peritonitis, and an intestinal blockage before she is ever allowed to touch handicapped ever again. But I'm not bitter.
The main point is, by the grace of God, Josh is with us still. He continues to surpass and amaze. If only everyone had a sibling as awesome as mine.
The surgery was okay up until they were ready to install the feeding apparatus. It perforated his stomach and went into his peritoneal cavity, which immediately began inflating. The surgeons, concerned about peritonitis (which could easily kill someone in fragile health like my brother), immediately stopped the surgery, and decided they would redo it the following week. Mom was impressed that they had the stones to come out and say that they had screwed up rather than continue and risk really harming him.
So they sent him home, and he deteriorated overnight. His O2 sats were really low, and so they brought him in the hospital. They had him on 10 liters of oxygen (my grandmother was on 4, and she has emphysema), when they decided they had to do a procedure to draw out the oxygen out of his gut with a needle. In the CT scan, they saw that the air in his peritoneum was crushing the left lobe of his lung. He immediately began feeling better once the air escaped.
However, then he developed an ilias (sp), or a blockage in his gut from being unable to eat and as a result of the surgery. Because he absolutely HAS to eat his formula regularly, or he dies, they had to do an emergency feeding tube installation.
They brought him in last night, and the surgery was a complete success. He was extubated and breathing on his own in no time.
As for the aid who was unwilling to work with Josh, there is a tiny part of me, the eye for an eye part of me, that wants her to get poked in the gut twice, develop pneumonia, struggle for air, develop subsequent peritonitis, and an intestinal blockage before she is ever allowed to touch handicapped ever again. But I'm not bitter.
The main point is, by the grace of God, Josh is with us still. He continues to surpass and amaze. If only everyone had a sibling as awesome as mine.
posted by Jessica @ Friday, April 07, 2006
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