BrynLee's Surgery

(7/1/11)
I knew we were done getting calls, so I was impatiently pacing and watching out the window for them to walk by.. It was so nice to see smiles on the surgeon's faces when they walked into the waiting room! The surgery was a success!
They had so much to do, and it was such a long surgery, that they were very impressed at how well she did.. There was several procedures that needed done.. They had to close the bladder, close the pelvis (pubic bone), fix the ureters, put stints in the ureters that lead to tubes through the abdominal wall into bags, place a stint in her bladder, also coming through the abdominal wall, make her a new belly button (her's was only about 3/4 inch above her pubic bone, and close the hole in her belly! That is ALOT to do to a brand new baby.. It was a 5 hour surgery!
They said when they got in there her bladder was smaller than they expected and her ureters had to be re-routed, but other than that, everything else went as expected! Because her bladder is so small, they aren't sure if it will ever grow with the rest of her body.. If it doesn't, she will have to have multiple surgeries as she grows so they can go in a resize her bladder.. They will take tissue from her intestines to make a bigger bladder every couple of years.. (Remember, this is if her bladder doesn't grow with her..) Most children with this condition suffer from incontinence.. The lower sphincter muscle at the bottom of the bladder doesn't work correctly and they aren't able to acctually HOLD any urine, so rather than her bladder filling and her releasing it, like normal people do, she will leak constantly.. She will most likely have to have a cath for the rest of her life..
She has stints in her ureters, which drain the urine directly from her kidneys, so the cath that is in her bladder isn't draining much right now.. That is completely normal! She will have the bags removed and the stints taken out 2 weeks post op (if everything goes well) and we'll go home with the cath (stint) that goes directly into her bladder! (again, IF everything goes well! LOL..) She has two braces around her legs, one around her calves and one around her thighs, that hold her legs closed. These are to allow her pelvis and pubic bone to heal. They said that her pubic bone was so spread out that they couldn't get it closed all the way.. Most of the time when they can't get it closed like that it will spread back open, so BrynLee could walk with a little bit of a waddle.. The cath in her bladder and the braces around her legs have to remain for another 2-3 weeks after we go home.. We'll come back down here to get the cath out and see if we can get the braces off.. (This is just a tentative schedule.. Sure would be nice if it all goes like this, but I doubt it will!)
When they closed the hole in her belly it was pretty tight.. They didn't have any extra skin to work with, so they had to just stretch the skin she already had.. They said they did get it closed, so that was really good news! They also made her a cute new belly button! We didn't get to see that for a couple of days, but once we did it sure was cute! It probably won't look natural, but it's better than what she had!
So we have alot of IF she does this and IF that goes as planned, etc.. But eventually we'll make it home! :)