Surgery for Necrotizing Fasciitis

On our way down to the hospital I talked with Big Sis about what was happening to Molly and why we were going down that night instead of waiting for our weekly visit the next night. Big Sis didn’t seem too shaken by the possibility that Molly could die that night, but she did express to me that she was sad about it. We picked up some Wendy’s chicken nuggets to eat for dinner on the way down there. Big Sis got a toy from the movie Annie, and we sang “Tomorrow” together in the car. It helped take my mind off what we were going down to the hospital for.

Ready to go into surgery. Not having a very fun time though.

We got to the hospital and Daddy texted saying he was in the PICU waiting room. We met the social worker that has been on Molly’s case since the beginning in the lobby of the hospital and she expressed how sad she was to hear about Molly’s current condition, and asked if she could go up with us to entertain Big Sis while we were waiting. I was OK with that.

We met Daddy in the PICU waiting room and we waited there while the social worker went to check on Molly. She came back and told us they’re ready for us to go see her, so we followed her back with the kids. Molly was asleep and she had several IVs connected to about 9 machines, and a breathing tube. The nurse chatted with us a little about how she was doing and told us that she was pretty stable except for a few things they’re giving her medications for. The surgeon said that they would give her a rest that night and in the morning they will assess her condition and depending on how she is doing they will either go back in to surgery in the morning or later in the day. I took the kids up to the ICS room where Molly had been staying, and slept there that night while Daddy stayed with Molly in the PICU. 

Somehow I fit on that couch too...

The next morning, Daddy texted me from the PICU and said that Molly is alert, her blood pressure is up, she’s breathing on her own, and she wants pink lemonade (Daddy had to figure that one out, as Molly had the breathing tube still and could only mouth the words).  I did some of Daddy’s laundry in the ICS parent room and then when Molly went in to surgery (later in the day, which was good because that meant that she was doing well enough to wait that long) I brought the kids to the surgery waiting room and we waited there for about an hour with Daddy while the surgeons changed the Wound VAC , and checked to make sure there was no more spreading of the infection. 

Doing well after surgery

The surgeon came in to give us an update and he said that he is confident that he was able to get all the infected tissue out, and he told us that another surgeon is going to perform the ostomy. They wanted to do a colostomy to output on her left side as that is the best option of the ostomies, but since the infected tissue was removed on the left side, they have to do an ileostomy to output on her right side instead which is actually better in Molly’s case because it allows them to also knock out the intussusception problem. And Molly can begin eating again because of that. The surgeon told us that the debridement he did the last night was a very difficult procedure and they will be checking the tissue for further infection every two days when they change the wound VAC. We asked about the ileostomy and if it was going to be a permanent thing, and he said yes because the infected tissue included most of the muscles around the rectum and she will not have any bowel control. But he said that she will still be able to control her urine, as those muscles were largely untouched. 

The many machines on which Molly's life depends.

 To be continued...again...