Complications

I apologize for not updating more regularly. We have had problems with the internet and Abby has been giving us trouble.

Unfortunately, Abby has had to return to the operating room twice in the last week and has also had general anesthesia twice more for other procedures and tests.

Since moving out of the ICU, Abby has had two infections in her face. The first one caused a great deal of swelling so that her incision started to separate. It never completely came apart, but it opened a wound that was never able to heal properly. This led to a yeast infection, which is very problematic. Yeast travels to the port and doesn't leave. Her port had already stopped functioning due to a probable clot, which is a whole other story, so her port was removed. She was sedated on Thursday to get a PICC line so that she could get rid of her IVs but still have access and she will not be able to get a new port until her infection is cleared up. We are still waiting on the identification and sensitivity (to medications) to come up with the best treatment plan for the yeast. Yesterday, Abby got her finger into the hole left open when a drain was removed on Thursday (actually, it wasn't removed, Abby pulled it out herself). The drain was inserted during Tuesday's surgery, which I'll talk about later. Once she got her finger in the hole, she simply pulled and her incision opened all the way almost from her ear to her chin. As it is almost a month post-surgery, this should not have happened. However, because of the prior infection and her poor healing due to radiation damage, the incision was not nearly as healed as it should have been. So she went in for emergency surgery yesterday afternoon to clean out the wound and stitch it back up and was also started on powerful antibiotics to prevent infection from having such a large open wound and Abby's hand being inside it.

So on to Tuesday's surgery. About two weeks ago, the incision on Abby's belly started to open. The stitches were starting to dissolve and there was too much tension and it just pulled apart. It had started to heal on its own by being packed with gauze in a wet-to-dry dressing so that there was always fresh tissue to grow together. Overnight, however, it developed very deep holes in two places. These holes were so deep that you could see the blue mesh holding her intestines into place. This caused her to go into surgery as well to get it cleaned and stitched up again.

Abby has also had a few CT scans looking for fluid and possibly pockets of infection in her face because of all the swelling/redness/fever that she'd had. They found a few small pockets of fluid, but nothing to be concerned about and these pockets have been shrinking.

We are very thankful that through all of this the flap has continued to look good. It still has excellent blood flow and has shown no sign of infection.

A week ago, Abby had her first swallow study, which would give her the opportunity to eat and drink again. Sadly, the was unable to swallow anything. Her tongue was making movements and she was trying to swallow, but she could not get coordinated enough to move liquid to the back of her mouth to have it available to swallow. Since yesterday's surgery, we have noticed a large decrease in the amount of drooling that she has been doing and actually asked for something to eat and drink.

In other big news, Abby's trach was capped on Friday. This means that she is breathing completely on her own through her mouth and nose. This is a step towards getting out her trach. Once she is able to successfully eat and drink without any aspiration, her trach can be removed.