Surgery Scheduled!!

Les' larynx surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday, the 29th.  We spent most of Tuesday at Pre-op appointments at UW.

My view in waiting room

Who knew?  First we needed a pre-op with the nurse who works with Dr. Hillel.  She went over the actual surgery (even tho she's never been involved with one like this!!).  She told us that along with Dr. Hillel there will be a fellow and a couple of residents involved.  She gave us this diagram, which is  a pretty good picture of what will be going on.  Les has a video of the surgery - if you want to see that, you can come and visit!

Les' trachea will be pulled up and stitched to his throat skin.  Hopefully by the time he leaves the hospital, he will have no plastic trach to mess with, or suction out, or clean.....  His swallowing will be direct through to the esophagus,  so no chance of aspirating since it will be separated in surgery.  He is hoping and praying he will be able to swallow more than just thin liquids.  While Dr. Hillel is in that throat area, he is also taking out two of Les' saliva glands.

Our second pre-op appointment was with the nurse and anesthesiolgist.  They went over all Les' physical stuff, making sure his heart is healthy for surgery, etc.  This nurse talked about AFTER surgery.  What to expect when he wakes up (lots of tubes, will be in ICU) and the duration of his stay in the hospital (5 to 7 days).  Sounds like he will got LOTS of attention while he is there - again, he is kind of a unique case so everyone wants to be involved :)

Last appointment was a (quick??) replacement of his feeding tube since his has been leaking a bit. They said it would take a couple of minutes - HA! Overall it took about an hour;  the actual swap out took about 5 seconds.  At this point of the day, we were exhausted and hungry and ready to get out of there!

SO, please pray for peace about all of this, and also for a successful surgery.  Because of his condition, there are of course more risks with this surgery, but he is willing to take those risks in order to have a better quality of life after surgery.  Les is actually pretty excited.  The reasons he is doing this surgery are:  A)  No more saliva.  He has had SO MUCH lately and it is such a pain to be messing with that all the time.  B)  He will be able to breathe easier through his trachea hole - no plastic tubing in the way.  And he won't have to suction and mess with that plastic trach tube.  C)  The ability to hopefully eat and swallow again.  D) Chances of aspirating will be minimized.

FYI, Les is once again "speaking" this coming Sunday morning, this time at his friend Ben's church.