Liam update 9/15/12 - 1 day post-op
Good morning all. Hope you slept better than we did. Well, if you slept like we did, you'd probably still be quite functional. Let me take you quickly through the last 24hrs or so, and let you know where we stand. We got up yesterday at 5am, and loaded up and headed the the hospital. We arrived at 6:30am and Liam was admitted to the pediatric surgery unit, where he underwent some quick preparations. Dr. Albanese came in and reviewed the procedure, and we had a beautiful moment of prayer with my mom, sister Beth, Dave (Erica's dad), and pastor Scott Buell. Shortly there-after, Liam headed for the surgery room, and we went to the waiting room. Thanks for being there mom, I don't think anybody would have had the same words (except for maybe Beth Wagner) that you could offer, have sent Emily down that hallway and knowing how every motherhood instinct screams to protect your baby. What a blessing to have your experience to comfort it such a real and genuine way.
Dr. Albanese told use to expect 5 and a half hours for surgery, so we setup in the waiting room for the long haul. Walter Wagner came and joined us with the ever important Moca Coolata for Erica and unending car talk for me - good distractions - thank you sir. Surgery began at 7:30am, and shortly after 10am, in came Dr. Albanese. We weren't unsuspecting of this, mom has told us that he will often take a break in-between parts of surgery to give parents an update, so we figured he had finished the first foot and was getting setup for the other one. The procedure was to release his heel (Achilles tendon), other foot tendons/bones, and then insert a surgical pin into each foot to maintain the position of everything as it heals. Dr. Albanese said, we're all done. Things went far better than expected, he was able to get everything into place and achieve all the correction he had hoped for. So, 5.5hrs of surgery was condensed into about 2hrs, with better than expected results. Praise God, He IS faithful. And He wasn't done blessing us.
Liam spent about an hour in the immediate surgery recovery room where he came groggily out of the fog and back to wakefulness. We then moved up to his room in the Gallisano Children's Hospital here at Upstate. While I may complain about the pitiful speed of the WiFi here, everything else, include the staff, is top shelf. We did not want for anything, and didn't even tap into all the resources they place at your finger-tips to have a comfortable and exciting stay. Liam slept most of the afternoon under the haze of narcotic pain medications, but gave us an hour here and there of wakefulness. When he was up, he was fairly comfortable. He was doing all his normal stuff, playing, downing bottles like they were going out of style, and just generally being awesome. We took a nice late-night walk around the 11th and 12th floors looking at the lights of the city, and playing the piano. Liam gave us a pretty good nights sleep, he was up every couple of hours, but quite pleasant, just wide awake from snoozing so much the day before. He wasn't in any great deal of pain. We saw Dr. Albanese's assist at 7am, and he is pleased with his post op, and cleared to head home. So, after a bit of paper-work, we should be on our way back to Auburn, and trying to get back into the swing of normal.
We can't thank you all enough for your prayers, this whole process has gone about as easily as it could have. Other than being a little tired and off our schedule, things are really great. Thanks to the friends and family that support us with an army of prayer and care - I literally don't know how we would ever do any of this without you. Keep praying for next week, Liam will come back on Friday to have casts put on. This will be done under anesthesia so that Dr. Albanese can manipulate his feet a little more before they are cast. This should be just a day procedure, no overnight. Then he will wear those casts for a while, as things heal. We will keep you all updated. Thank you all again for your support.
Good morning all. Hope you slept better than we did. Well, if you slept like we did, you'd probably still be quite functional. Let me take you quickly through the last 24hrs or so, and let you know where we stand. We got up yesterday at 5am, and loaded up and headed the the hospital. We arrived at 6:30am and Liam was admitted to the pediatric surgery unit, where he underwent some quick preparations. Dr. Albanese came in and reviewed the procedure, and we had a beautiful moment of prayer with my mom, sister Beth, Dave (Erica's dad), and pastor Scott Buell. Shortly there-after, Liam headed for the surgery room, and we went to the waiting room. Thanks for being there mom, I don't think anybody would have had the same words (except for maybe Beth Wagner) that you could offer, have sent Emily down that hallway and knowing how every motherhood instinct screams to protect your baby. What a blessing to have your experience to comfort it such a real and genuine way.
Dr. Albanese told use to expect 5 and a half hours for surgery, so we setup in the waiting room for the long haul. Walter Wagner came and joined us with the ever important Moca Coolata for Erica and unending car talk for me - good distractions - thank you sir. Surgery began at 7:30am, and shortly after 10am, in came Dr. Albanese. We weren't unsuspecting of this, mom has told us that he will often take a break in-between parts of surgery to give parents an update, so we figured he had finished the first foot and was getting setup for the other one. The procedure was to release his heel (Achilles tendon), other foot tendons/bones, and then insert a surgical pin into each foot to maintain the position of everything as it heals. Dr. Albanese said, we're all done. Things went far better than expected, he was able to get everything into place and achieve all the correction he had hoped for. So, 5.5hrs of surgery was condensed into about 2hrs, with better than expected results. Praise God, He IS faithful. And He wasn't done blessing us.
Liam spent about an hour in the immediate surgery recovery room where he came groggily out of the fog and back to wakefulness. We then moved up to his room in the Gallisano Children's Hospital here at Upstate. While I may complain about the pitiful speed of the WiFi here, everything else, include the staff, is top shelf. We did not want for anything, and didn't even tap into all the resources they place at your finger-tips to have a comfortable and exciting stay. Liam slept most of the afternoon under the haze of narcotic pain medications, but gave us an hour here and there of wakefulness. When he was up, he was fairly comfortable. He was doing all his normal stuff, playing, downing bottles like they were going out of style, and just generally being awesome. We took a nice late-night walk around the 11th and 12th floors looking at the lights of the city, and playing the piano. Liam gave us a pretty good nights sleep, he was up every couple of hours, but quite pleasant, just wide awake from snoozing so much the day before. He wasn't in any great deal of pain. We saw Dr. Albanese's assist at 7am, and he is pleased with his post op, and cleared to head home. So, after a bit of paper-work, we should be on our way back to Auburn, and trying to get back into the swing of normal.
We can't thank you all enough for your prayers, this whole process has gone about as easily as it could have. Other than being a little tired and off our schedule, things are really great. Thanks to the friends and family that support us with an army of prayer and care - I literally don't know how we would ever do any of this without you. Keep praying for next week, Liam will come back on Friday to have casts put on. This will be done under anesthesia so that Dr. Albanese can manipulate his feet a little more before they are cast. This should be just a day procedure, no overnight. Then he will wear those casts for a while, as things heal. We will keep you all updated. Thank you all again for your support.
Here is some photos from his time in the hospital if your interested
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