We Four Olsons: Asher is Doing Great

Yesterday Asher had his procedure done at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital. Surgery lasted a little over an hour, and they did a laryngoscopy, bronchoscopy, supraglottoplasty, and esophageal biopsy. Asher was incredible. He had to stop eating at 7:30 a.m., we arrived at the hospital around 2:00 p.m., and then his procedure was delayed because the case before him went long so he didn't actually get back to the OR until 7:00. But he was a champ. He made lots of friends in the waiting room, was called a flirt more than once, and took a short little snooze at one point. It was so helpful having grandparents there to keep him entertained for 5 hours at the hospital before it was time to go back, and the surgical floor had no shortage of toys and interesting things to look at, so that helped too :)

The surgery went really well. His doctor said that his tissues looked really healthy, actually not what you would see in a chronic aspirator (good news!). They did not see a cleft or fistula, which was the main purpose of this 'investigation', so he will not need a follow-up procedure (yay!). They did 'release' (cut) some tissue that may have been interfering with his ability to swallow, but neither surgeon seemed very convinced that would have been what has caused him to aspirate. The plan now is to keep him on aspiration precautions and see how he is doing in about 3 months when we repeat his swallow study & upper GI. If he does not start gaining weight, we will follow up with GI to see if he has something interfering with absorption when he eats.

But otherwise, he is doing beautifully and we are happy to be done with doctors visits for a while.

We were lucky enough to have four grandparents with us, so I have lots of pictures to tell the story of our last 24 hours.

Taking a bath in his pre-op soap before heading to the hospital

Amplatz

We were greeted by a familiar face! Penelope was riding 'round and 'round in the front door :)

Grandpa Jim & Asher playing with trains

Hanging out during the pre-op physical (baby blood pressure cuffs are the cutest...)

Running laps with Grandma Jo in the pre-op area

Hugging his turtle

Clapping for himself.... Yay Asher!

Asher graffiti'd the white board, and Grandpa Jim added himself as a team member :)

Relaxing with Grandpa Rich

Looked like a little wizard in his unsnapped pants running around the waiting room

This was a well deserved nap! After 5 hours of serious Grandpa duty, time to crash :)

Getting closer to 'go time'

Asher napping before surgery, mommy supervising

Getting Ash gowned up

They let me go back into the OR with him while the anesthesia team put him under

....and then we waited....

Post-op was probably the most distressing part of the whole deal. Asher had a tough time coming out of anesthesia and was fairly inconsolable. His heart rate got up to 197 at one point, which made me really uncomfortable, but we were told that's all normal in little ones. After he had calmed down, we were able to head up to the floor where we spent the night.

King of the Castle, riding around on his throne