Jeremy sent out a few status updates via Facebook on Tuesday, so here I will try to recap Putman5 events this week from Tuesday to today. As for the rest of us, we had a quiet Thanksgiving. Someone from Mom & Dad's church provided the Thanksgiving meal big stress reliever for my Mom and let me stay off my feet. I love how the Lord provides for ALL our needs (and many of our wants!).
We were at the hospital for a total of 8 hours on Tuesday. We had a lot of snow on Monday and roads were bad Monday evening, but The Lord provided clear traffic and we got there safely (we didn't need the chains we had put on the night before). The procedure was at 8:40. The Doctor's went into baby via a thick needle (after anesthetizing my skin and sedating baby first, thankfully!) and inserted the shunt (basically a one way suction tube) into the largest cyst inside baby's mass. On me it was on my front left tummy area. On baby it comes out just under baby's left shoulder blade, in the back. Baby was in a GREAT position for this as it enabled them easy access away from baby's heart. Everything in the procedure went as well as possible.
We were kept for monitoring and had a follow-up ultrasound at 3 p.m. By that time, almost ALL the fluid (black spots on the previous picture of baby) was GONE. There is one small cyst that is not drained because it is not "communicating" (in layman's - connected) to the big one that the shunt is in.
We had a follow up appointment yesterday morning, and the cysts are remaining drained, so the mass is quite a big smaller. We can see the right lung now (left is still quite squashed under the mass and will remain so), the heart is more toward the center of the body and looks huge to our eyes. The swelling in the head has gone down some, and the edema in the body also. The fluid in the abdomen looks about the same, and the Dr. said we would "expect" (as much as anything like this can follow any expected pattern) it to take a few weeks for baby to reabsorb all that fluid. We have also been able to see the stomach. The ultrasound tech surmised that the mass was blocking baby's ability to swallow. When baby cannot swallow, then the stomach is empty and is not visible on ultrasound. Hooray! Baby is swallowing now.
Thank you for your continued prayers. We are so thankful. Short of miraculous healing (which we know God can do) it looks like we'll remain monitored throughout pregnancy and baby will have surgery immediately after delivery to enable breathing and proper lung development. I am praying for 2x a week appointments (or less often) and for the hydrops to be resolving.
Hope you are enjoying a wonderful time of focusing on the Lord "and all His benefits"
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