Cannon’s surgery, swallow study, and more!

Well, I’ve been giving tidbits of information on Cannon on Facebook about his surgery and swallow study and all, but I thought I’d give a little bit more detail here. So here we go!
Cannon’s Surgery:
Friday May 20, 2011 Cannon had surgery to repair his esophagus. The first part of his surgery was to disconnect the lower half of his esophagus from his trachea. We knew going into surgery that this was the very least they would be doing on this day. That part was a success! The next part was to put the upper and lower part of the esophagus together. All the weeks from birth leading up to surgery the doctors were not able to tell us whether or not this part of surgery would be able to be done. Cannon was born with quite a gap and they were not sure if they would have enough to bridge that gap. After a very long two and a half to three hour wait in the waiting room one of the surgeons finally came out to talk to us. He said that they had PLENTY of esophagus to work with and they were VERY pleased with how well the surgery went and how Cannon handled it. This is EXACTLY what we had been praying for all these weeks. We kept waiting on the doctor to say “but…..” And to our surprise we did not end up having to hear that! They said it could not have gone better!
He spent Friday and Saturday on the vent and by Sunday he had only a nasal cannula on low settings. On Monday he started getting 1 mL an hour of milk dripped through his gastric tube. On Wednesday his milk was upped and he started getting 2 mLs an hour through his gastric tube. Thursday he turned 8 weeks old, went off the nasal cannula, and started getting 3 mLs an hour of milk! By Friday he was getting 4 mLs an hour!
Cannon’s Swallow Study:
Exactly one week later on Friday May 27, 2011 Cannon had his swallow study. He needed this to make sure that before they started him on a bottle that he had no leaks at the surgery site. Trent and I got to watch on the screen as he swallowed the yucky barium! He took that stuff like a champ and went to town on that nasty stuff! It was really neat to watch it on the screen. He had NO leaks! Of course we already had a feeling of this since when they did his surgery it ended up not being as tight of a stretch to make the connection as originally thought. About 2 hours later he was able to get his chest tube out and start taking a bottle by mouth! The moment of truth…..
Cannon’s First Bottle:
He did great! Ok, so his first bottle was only a tiny 5 mL bottle, but hey…he’s got to start somewhere right?! It was a tiny little drop of milk, but he seemed to enjoy it! Hopefully he will get it all figured out soon. He’s not used to swallowing things all the way down just yet since he didn’t have to do that for the first 7 weeks of life, but he will get the hang of it. He’s doing very well. Friday was his first bottle (the tiny little 5 mL bottle) and by Saturday they increased the bottles to 7 mLs. And today he was having 10 mL bottles! He’s on cycles of feedings so he is still getting fed through his gastric tube along with the bottles. So today he went from having 3 bottles a day plus the g tube feeds to 4 bottles a day and g tube feeds. So far he is doing great with this. We just pray that as the volume of these feeds goes up he will continue to do great. And we also pray that he does not have horrible reflux. The doctors are optimistic and have been telling us the last few days that if everything goes well as they increase his calorie intake that he MIGHT get to go home in the next couple of weeks. Keep in mind that is BEST case scenario! It at least gives us something to hope for, but I also don’t want to get my hopes up either so I keep telling myself it could be way longer! Either way Trent and I want what is best for Cannon! So we are not pushing the doctors to send him home.
Trent and I greatly appreciate every single prayer that each person has sent up. We could not have gotten through all of this without God and prayers. He has definitely stood by our side and taken care and watched over Cannon through all of this. We hope to get home soon so we can slowly start introducing our son to the rest of our family and to our friends.

FINALLY 3 days before his surgery one of the drs. let us put a onesie on him.  So this is his first outfit!

Not sure if you can see the drip drop of milk in this bottle, but it is his first bottle of 5 mLs of milk!

My 2 favorite guys!

He's got a decent little cry and it will get stronger as time goes on!

The first time Trent got to feed Cannon!



Much love~
Christian

A day of good news....

Let me begin by saying that Cannon has been doing so well.  He's been steadily gaining weight and getting closer to having his surgery.  Today, he finally reached a milestone that I have been waiting for....waiting 17 days for!  lol.  I am proud to say that he weighs 4 pounds!  April 18, 2011 he weighed in at 3 pounds and 17 days later he weighed in at 4 pounds!  Yes, I know I just repeated it, but that's because I am so very proud of this!  Go Cannon!  Also, I am extremely happy to say that all the chromosomes tests the drs. sent off on Cannon have come back completely normal! 
We have been patiently waiting for Cannon to grow so he can have surgery.  In my last post I told what kind of problem Cannon has and that he'd be having surgery to correct the problem.  Here is a little more in depth description of the problem.  He has what the drs. refer to as a "pouch" that started out at a depth of 6.5 cm down the back of his throat and it is now at around 9 cm.  The bottom part of the esophagus comes up from the stomach and connects to his trachea instead of to the upper part of the esophagus or what is now referred to as that pouch.  So the surgery will remove the lower part of the esophagus from the trachea and hopefully connect it to the upper part of the esophagus.  I say hopefully because the drs. say best case scenario is that they can make the connection.  Worst case scenario is they cannot make the connection. Please pray that they can make this connection!  I don't even want to get into what will go on in Cannon's future if they are not able to do it now (he would be fine and eventually have the connection made, but it'd be in probably a year and with some issues to deal with between now and then).  We will cross that bridge IF we get to it and at that point in time is when I will explain it in further detail.  I am hoping and praying I don't even have to go there though!  Our whole family's prayer is that they can make all the right connections during this surgery!  However, even if they can do it all Cannon has a long road ahead of him.  Babies with what Cannon has have a lot of reflux issues and introducing feeding doesn't always go very well, and add the fact that he is premature...He's just got a long hard road to go down.  But he's a fighter and I have faith he's going to do just fine.
Speaking of surgery......Cannon's surgeons came by today to make rounds and they are putting him tentatively on the schedule for May 20 to have surgery.  This date could change as they said "tentatively" but it gives us a better idea of a time frame we are looking at.  Please pray that Cannon will be big enough and strong enough, and that he will handle the surgery well.  Also, pray that the drs. can bridge his little gap and make the ends of the esophagus meet.  Please pray that God will guide every dr. and nurse during and after his surgery and that Cannon will bounce back quickly and show us that awesome personality he's developing!!
Now for a few fun things....Cannon is looking like his daddy more and more everyday in my opinion (and our family, and our friends, and every nurse and dr. that has seen him!!! haha)  However, I think he's starting to act a tiny bit like me...He's wanting more attention and love everyday!  Today I stood by his "box" (as I like to call it...it's really an isolette or incubator..haha) for almost 2 hours and he'd have me hold his paci for 5 or 10 minutes while he looked around and then he'd fall asleep and spit out the paci and a few minutes later just as I thought it was safe for me to sit down he'd start crying again...Then we'd repeat!!  I loved it though.  Actually made me feel a little bit needed!  It's amazing how much of a sucker I've become for that little boy!  Anyways, he's filling out and growing and that's exactly what he needs to be doing!  Trent and I could not be more proud of him and we cannot wait to get him home and show him off!  I do believe he's going to be SPOILED ROTTEN by all that know him!

Right after he was born

The first time I held him

One of mine and Trent's favorite pictures of Cannon



The first time Trent held him

Another one of our favorite pictures of him

I got my first mohawk when I was just shy of being a month old!

Cannon's "fresh hatched baby chick" look...This is what happens to his hair after it gets washed and nobody smooths it back down!!

This is what he looks like without all the tape and mouth tube in the way!  I can't wait to see him like this all the time!

Ok, well this is all that I have time for tonight!  I could keep adding pictures but I have to call it quits!  Thank you everyone that has been praying for our sweet little boy and please keep the prayers coming his way!

Love,

Christian (and Trent and Cannon too I suppose.)