Super quick update... hopefully i will have some downtime tomorrow to gather more detailed stuff, but here's the skeleton rundown of the day.
Chi's surgery was scheduled to be started at 7:30. John and I wanted to be sure that we were up there in time so we literally had like FIVE alarms set to wake us up at the appropriate time! We go up to his bed early to see him before they took him away. As soon as we got up there the overnight nurse asked if we wanted to hold Malachi before the surgery... umm... YES!!!! so John and I each got a chance to hold our little man before they took him downstairs. Pastor Mark was able to come see Chi and pray with us before they took him down and we were all allowed to follow as they pushed the cart to the appropriate floor. on the way down there was a bit of a scare as the ventilator wasn't working properly and they had to manually hand pump air for Chi to continue breathing until they got him moved to another bed. after meeting the nursing staff and anesthesiologist we were able to reach through and give Chi a little love squeeze to let him know we were there and that we loved him and that SO MANY PEOPLE were praying for him.
then we waited. we were able to kind of digest and process what has already taken place as we talked with pastor mark and brian and filled them in on the situation and what God has already been doing and how He has been working through this situation. it was nice that the people at the desk kind of turned a blind eye and let john's mom sit with us for a little while too. we are currently restricted right now as far as visitors go with the rule being only TWO PERTINENT visitors per patient. that means john and i would be the pertinent visitors and that's all. they do, however, allow pastors and people of that nature to stop by though. we received updates every hour from an operating room nurse who made rounds in the waiting room which was great. by 12:30 they were finished with the different operations and Chi was in stable condition in recovery. they were able to repair the TE fistula as well as put in a central line to allow better access for the doctors and nurses to administer medication and that sort of thing. The ENT doc, however, was unable to scope the nasal passages as planned. One more thing has since been added to Chi's ever-growing list of problems. He has ductal atresia, meaning both of his nasal ducts are closed off. either they are not open or they are very slightly open, but not enough to get any air through. it is something that will need to be operated on and taken care of before he can be dismissed, meaning probably two more weeks of Riley added to his stay.
after all that we were able to sneak home for a bit to see emma and try to relax with my feet up. If you saw my ankles, you too would agree that i NEED more time with my feet up to stop some of this swelling. unfortunately while we were home we received a call from one of the doctors on the NICU team and we needed to come in so he could talk with us. we quickly packed up a few things and rushed back to the hospital. so much for a relaxing afternoon at home. he kind of went through the list of symptoms and things that we were already aware of. he didn't really touch on anything new, but just wanted to let us know that they are going to do a chromosome test and once that is done they may be able to narrow down what is going on with our baby. they do think that chi has something wrong on a genetic/chromosomal level, so hopefully we can get some definitive answers from these tests.
the rest of the night we have been able to spend time with Chi and ask questions we had to the nurses and other staff. we also spent some time just getting to know our nurse and the nurse of the baby right next to chi. it has thus far been a very tiring, very interesting journey and we know it has only just begun and that there is MUCH MUCH MUCH more for us to learn along the way. i cannot even count the number of blessings we have already received, even just in the matter of the past 24 hours. i wish i had the time and energy to write them all down so that we can look back on God's greatness even in the small things throughout the course of these days. i wish i would have written more throughout the day so that i could better remember what all took place, but it has been a blur that is for sure.
one huge blessing is that we've been able to stay another night at the Ronald McDonald house. we didn't get our names in until later in the day, but the nurse really pushed the fact that we were a high-priority case and that the baby is 3 days old and would be recovering from surgery. Bless their hearts, they've had compassion on us Sharbaughs and allowed us to stay for the night.
Please continue to pray for Chi's recovery from surgery, my physical healing from the delivery/postpartum stuff, and really that we can get a room at the long-term ronald mcdonald facilty here in town. it would be such a huge blessing to know where we are going to stay each night.
We obviously have many, many things going through our minds at this point and still have many uncertainties surrounding baby chi. thank you so much for the care and support that you have provided to us through this difficult time. john has said on multiple occasions that our human strength had completely run out as soon as they took Malachi to the NICU within minutes after delivery. Since then we have been running on God-give strength and endurance fueled by your prayers. Please, please keep them coming! So maybe this update wasn't as super quick as I had planned. Have a good night.
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