Brody is out of surgery and doing ok

Brody is out of surgery and is doing ok.   The surgeon was able to remove about 95% of his tumor.   There was a section of the tumor around his bowel with too much vascular involvement to attempt to remove this part of the tumor.   Brody's left kidney was also removed.   His right kidney is functioning very well though.   The surgeon also had to sacrifice the ileac vein.   He said Brody may experience swelling in his left leg from this.   The ileac vein is responsible for blood return out of the left leg.   He said Brody has already developed "collaterals. "  Brody's tumor was already blocking flow through the ileac vein previously and so Brody's body compensated by growing new blood vessels to bypass this blockage.   With sacrificing the ileac vein,  Brody will probably grow even more of these collaterals to help with this situation.   Brody lost 4 units of blood during the surgery today and they replaced 3 units.  Bill,  myself,  our friend Barbie,  and our friend Mark all donated blood for a direct donation to Brody.   Those donations went to use today.   Thank you so much Barbie and Mark!   Brody is still on a vent today and we are hopeful he will be able to come off it tomorrow.  

As many of you know already,  Brody was suffering from a high fever,  tachycardia,  and low white count yesterday and his surgery was delayed to today.   His vitals did stabilize and fevers subsided so he was able to have surgery,  obviously.   But,  Brody is still battling an infection in his blood.   His blood cultures were positive for gram negative rods early this morning.   I am not sure what type of blood infection exactly it is yet.   He is receiving 2 different iv antibiotics to treat the infection.  

Brody has a very large incision which runs vertically up the center of his entire abdomen.   He was experiencing pain in his abdomen when he was first waking up but he has let us know it is no longer hurting (pain is well-controlled).  

We talked to Brody quite a bit in the weeks leading up to surgery to let him know generally what to expect after the surgery.   He was aware that it was likely he would be on a vent after surgery and that he would not be able to talk with all of these tubes in his mouth.   We practiced communicating without being able to talk these last couple of weeks.   Brody has been putting these skills to use tonight and has been remaining calm about the situation.  He knows that either Mommy or Daddy will be at his bedside at all times and that if something is wrong,  he wiggles his fingers.   We grab his hand when he does that.   He squeezes our hand to confirm to us that something is wrong.   Then we ask him questions that he can answer with a yes or no for us to figure out what is wrong.   He nods his head appropriately for yes or no.   I am beyond AMAZED at how well he is handling all of this tonight.   He is one strong,  brave,  inspirational,  and very much loved little boy.

Let's pray for a restful and uneventful night for Brody.