Kyara is in ICU and doing well

Dr. Coran said that everything went very well, better than normal. The only big issue was that the esophagus was stuck to the Aorta. He was a little nervous about separating the the two, but there were no complications, she did not bleed. An esophagus is normally stretchy, like a rubber band. In Kyara's case it was like a rope, very rigid. It was in truly bad shape. The surgery only took 3 hours, they can last 5 to 6 hours. In the picture you can see she has one tube coming out of her nose (a nasogastric or NG tube). This will "supplement" her feeding until she is fully recovered. She should be able to eat foods through her mouth in the near future. There is another tube coming out of her mouth (an endotracheal or ET tube). This does the breathing for Kyara. The Dr's want Kyara's body to concentrate on recovering, so even the breathing is done by a machine at this point. The lungs are also usually very weak in patients with this kind of surgery. In Kyara's case, right after the surgery, she was already breathing very well. They considered letting her breathe on her own. This has never been a consideration in previous patients, but Kyara's lungs appear to be so strong that they thought about it. Although they decided against removing it, the strength of Kyara's lungs would not come as a surprise to those that know Kyara well. Her lung capacity is truly extraordinary. She can scream (when crying) like nobody in the Western Hemisphere. If you upset Kyara by looking at her funny she will scream like if somebody chopped her finger off. Even when talking, her volume is a few decibels higher than normal. :)

Kyara will be in ICU for a couple of days, we don't know exactly how long yet. Dr. Coran is going to come by tomorrow to see her and we will find out more then. Kyara will be in ICU until Dr. Coran feels it is safe to remove her endotracheal (breathing) tube. Once we leave the ICU we will go back to the main recovery unit. We are guessing she will be there for another week-10 days. Again we are guessing. We are still staying at the Holiday Inn, the Ronald McDonald house has not had any openings, yet, but the caseworker here at the hospital is working on that for us. Many people have asked about the address...we are moving around so much right now, we don't know where we will be from one night to the next. If we get in the Ronald McDonald house, that might be the best address to give out. We will let you know, sorry for the lack of information.

A little note on our brave Kyara: Once in the room, while heavily sedated, apparently Kyara did sit up and try to take her tube out of her mouth. She is supposed to be sleeping (heavily sedated) for the next several days. They had to restrain her and give her some more medication. They commented how strong Kyara must be. They have no idea...