Boland Babies

We were told there are going to be be good days and bad days in this whole "life in the NICU" thing and today we had a few set backs.

REECE
Our little trooper, Reece, had to have major surgery this morning. I awoken to Ben telling me "Get dressed, There is a surgeon on the way over from Greenville to operate on Reece. We have to get there quick to sign the consent form." Not the way any mother wants to wake up! I'm going to hand the computer over to Ben to explain more on the medical aspect of the surgery ( he understands the mechanics of things a little better than I).
Well, basically Reece had an isolated perforation (small tear) in her intestines. The nurses caught it when her stomach became sort of tight and bloated. An x-ray revealed that air and debris was leaking into her abdomen, which is cause for immediate emergency surgery. After the surgery (which was sort of exploratory), Dr. Chandler said that the isolated perforation is about the best cause for the leak that we could hope for, so I guess that's good news considering the circumstance. They removed a tiny section of her bowel, and put in a colostomy bag (sp.?). Hopefully that will be removed in 6 weeks and she'll be as good as new. For right now we have to worry about infection and hope that it doesn't happen! Keep praying hard!


CHARLIE
Charlie continues to do well. The Dr.s did have to stop his feedings that they started yesterday because wasn't having any output. When Dr. Uy talked to us about this it seemed that she was thinking Charlie may have some bowel issues similar to Reece in the future. We are praying that this is not the case and we can pick up with his feedings soon. There's really no way to tell right now.

LOUISE
We were hopeful that Louise would have her chest tube taken out today, but unfortunately a chest x ray showed that the air pocket on her lung had come back a little bit. They turned the chest tubes back on-and hopefully we can get this taken care of quickly.

Today has been a rough day in the Boland household and we could use all the prayers we can get. Sorry, if this post is kind of a downer........but we are on a rollercoster of ups and downs.