Tiffany's Blog: Kota's Surgery

Today we took Dakota to Primary Children's to have her reflux repaired. Her last UTI she started spiking fevers over 100 so her urologist and the surgeon said we needed to fix it. We got there at 645am this morning and registered. We sat in the waiting room for a bit while Kota played with the toys that are all over for the kids. They called us back and checked her vitals, did a full exam, we changed her into her gown, and talked to the surgeon. Dr. Oottamasathien came in and said he looked at her VCUG and nuclear studies and found grade 1 reflux on the left side no one had noticed, she was originally diagnosed with grade 3 reflux on the right side. Anyway he suggested we repair both sides and we agreed. We then met with the anesthesiologist, the nurse, and a child life specialist who were all in the OR with her. The anesthesiologist walked her with the little car to the OR LOL made me feel a little better.

I wasn't nervous about the procedure, just about the anesthesia. They didn't have to make any incisions. He went up with a cystoscope through her urethra and injected a substance called deflux next to the opening of the ureters. He used 0.5cc on the left and 1.7cc on the right to close them. He had to do a little caudery on the right side to slow bleeding at the injection site but she did really well and the whole thing took about an hour. While me and Ty were in the waiting room they had coffee, hot chocolate, juice, donuts, muffins, and other snacks for us while we waited. When they were finished we had a consultation with the surgeon where he told us about the procedure and showed us pictures and tonz of other information.

Right after I went back to be with her in the PACU when she woke up. It was so cute as soon as she saw me she sat up and wanted me to hold her. Shortly after that she started thrashing and screaming and was not liking coming out of general anesthesia. When she was very awake they took us to post-op recovery where Ty got to come in. It took like 45 minutes of thrashing before she calmed down. There were times I had to put her in the crib because I thought I was going to drop her. It was super sad. Daddy was finally able to calm her down and she enjoyed several purple popsicles. The IV, pulse ox, and id band came off quickly because she HATED them. That helped a lot. They gave her Lortab and when that kicked in she looked drugged LOL and was super relaxed. It was better than the screaming and crying, too sad for me.

Anyway, she did awesome overall and we follow up in 4-6 weeks to be sure she's still doing well. The only thing is possible bladder spasms for the next few weeks. They are super painful and so we have some medication for her if that happens. While this fixes the reflux for now, when she starts potty training if we don't stay on our game, the reflux can come back. When she learns to hold her pee the pressure changes in the bladder and can cause problems for her. We have to take her to the bathroom every 2 hrs and she cannot be allowed to hold it longer than that for a while. We can't let her get constipated because that can also cause issues for her reflux. So pretty much we will be keeping an eye on her for a while but either way for now she has no reflux and that's a relief.

A long day, but worth it. And Braden had an awesome day with Grandma Angela and Uncle Jaxson. And I can say it's a blessing having such an awesome facility so close to home. They make it much easier on her and us.