by He’s a little naked here, but…. I busted him in the act of trying to order food from ubereats when he’s supposed to be NPO
Surgery today went well. They were able to remove the stent, and AJ was in and out of the OR so fast that Aaron had ordered an omelette, had to leave to do the post op consult, and went back down to the cafeteria after and they had only just finished boxing his omelette up
Everyone was impressed with how well he was doing. Even going so far as to say how impressed they were. He tolerated the anesthesia like a champ.
Originally they wanted to leave the stent in for longer, however it was eroding into his esophagus, which was the reason for needing to proceed with the surgery and stent removal today instead of next week.
His grafts are in tact and look great so far, but that’s to be expected since there was a stent in place that would have kept any undesired swelling/construction in the tissue from forming over it. I did include a comparison image for reference. You can see the round stent (straw-like) that they removed today in place post op and in the first couple of “current” pictures. You can also see the granulation tissue (white marks) that is in place (they aren’t going to do anything about it at this time as it may go away on its own now that the stent is out). And in the last couple of pictures you can see the grafts in place (marked in pen on one of the pictures even).
He’s doing well enough that we are currently looking at discharge TOMORROW. (Knock on some wood and say a prayer or two please! ).
From here he will need a follow up bronch this coming Thursday and then another bronch with his surgeon on March 8th. Those later bronchoscopies will give us a true picture of how he is healing. It’ll be expected to need to do a balloon dilation or two, but right now we are praying that everything holds in place and heals as it’s supposed to. We will still need to remain local at a minimum until April, but future bronchs will help narrow down the actual timeline.
So for now — we are praying that he heals well and that he still gets to bust out of here tomorrow. He’s definitely restless!!
Thank you all for your prayers. They certainly seem to be working, and we couldn’t be anymore thankful for them if we tried. The love and support is amazing.
