5.2.10

Jake’s operation went smoothly. He is now stoma free and has been doing well in recovery. He’s on morphine and has been drifting in and out of sleep, occasionally waking and asking for cuggles. At one point, he cuddled his Penguin then drifted off to sleep again. It’s the first time he’s really done that. He’s fond of Penguin and plays with him a lot but has never cuddled anything to sleep. Everything is a lot less stressful this time, it makes such a difference going in with a well and healthy child. He weighed in at 9 kgs too!

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A bit of background on this: In August 2009, Jake had to have emergency surgery on his colon following months of a painful and mystery illness affecting his bowel.  For many months we were constantly at the Doctors and in and out of A & E, trying to get to the bottom of things.  We knew there was something wrong but it wasn't until very late in the day before we managed to get anyone to take things seriously.  Everyone just kept telling us he was just constipated, or had thrush or a virus.  In the end, he was admitted into hospital after a bout of vomiting and severe dehydration.  An x-ray and worsening of his symptoms got us transferred to The Royal London Hospital where he had surgery, leaving him with an ileostomy to allow his colon to rest and heal.  He spent three days in intensive care and than a further 3.5 weeks on a children's surgery ward.  Despite various tests, no one was able to determine the cause of his illness. 

After months of having a stoma, eating well and putting on weight, his consultant decided it was time to reverse the ileostomy and give him a chance to go back to normal.  As we don't know what caused his illness first time round, there is a possibility that it will happen again, but there is also the chance that it was a one-off.  We'll have to wait and see.

It was only after Jake was discharged the first time that his surgeons openly talked to us about how seriously ill he was.  As he is in for an elective procedure, and while he is healthy and well, his recovery this time should be much less complicated.  There are risks of infection and other things happening, but they are small. Jake's doing well and we are hopeful of a relatively quick recovery, but we also know that things can go up and down. In the meantime, we're very pleased with how Jake is doing right now.