Doctor Van Aultman

Until today, I've been referring to Drew's surgeon as Dr. Daniel Van Aultman. I've only seen him twice in my life, both times in scrubs, or talked about him over the phone with Martin when Drew was in the hospital. Today, when I signed in at his appointment, I noticed that his name is actually Dr. Daniel Von Aullmen. Close enough.

So there was good news and not so good news. The good news is that Drew looks great. He's gaining great weight (7lb 5oz!) and doing well otherwise. The bad news is that this means they don't feel a need to rush into his next surgery. They would do the surgery tomorrow if he had poor weight gain, his skin was breaking down under the ostomy bag, or there was some issue with the stomas (thats what they call the two ends of his bowel sticking out of his belly). Fortunately for Drew, hes having none of these issues. Unfortunately for us that means several more weeks of suctioning poop out of the bag to measure it, dealing with the inevitable 4am leak, and the stress that comes along with restraining him to get the bag changed.

It seems counterintuitive that since hes doing well they don't want to do the next surgery yet. However, whats most important is his growth, and with another surgery there will be some weight loss, risk of infection, and all the other good stuff that comes along with any surgery. People live their entire lives with colostomy's. The logic of doing the surgery if there was poor weight gain or broken down skin or something is simply that once the intestine is back together and things can just pass through it in its entirety, there is better nutrient absorption and hopefully weight gain and growth (all the things we're currently experiencing with that bag that will hopefully & likely just continue to improve after hes reconnected).

SO, we wait. We go back to the doctor in 4 weeks and hopefully schedule surgery at that time. We've heard that it takes 2-3 weeks to schedule a surgery so in all likelihood we have 6-8 weeks left before we can move past this challenge in our lives.