About a week ago, I noticed that Atticus had a strange, soft lump near the bottom of his chest scar. His sternum tends to stick out a little anyway (which can be normal for these little guys), but this was something different. It felt like a cyst, and was slightly smaller/flatter than a golf ball. I tend not to be an alarmist, so I put the word out to my fellow Heart Mamas to see if anyone had a little one with something similar. A few other moms mentioned that their kids had benign cysts like I was describing, and they just needed to be drained. It made me feel better, but I still made plans mentally to call his pediatrician on the following Monday (it was late Friday evening).
Then on Saturday morning, I noticed the lump began to look red/purplish and irritated. And that's also when I noticed the small hard lump in the center of the squishy lump. And that's when I decided to call the emergency room to see if they thought we should come in, or wait until Monday. They said as long as he wasn't running a fever, the site wasn't hot to the touch, and he wasn't nauseated, that we should be ok until Monday.
Monday seemed to take forever! We went first thing that morning to our pediatrician's office. You could see the surprise in their eyes when they saw the lump. It was looking pretty ugly. Atticus' pediatrician said what I had feared. He thought it was a loose chest wire. He told me to make an immediate follow-up with Dr Bradley (Atticus' heart surgeon), because no matter what was causing the lump, Dr B was going to have to be the one to correct it.
So after a phone call to Dr Bradley's office, we had an appointment the next day, Tuesday. Yay. Another trip across the state. But it was a good thing we went. After an x-ray, echocardiogram, and EKG, they determined that Atticus did indeed have a "popped" chest wire that was sticking straight out. The lump was granulated tissue surrounding the wire (the body's way of defending itself from the irritant). We were then scheduled for surgery on Wednesday to remove the bottom 2 chest wires and the excess tissue.
On a really great note (pre-tissue warning!), I also decided to talk with the Peds Surgery about Atticus' G-tube while we were down there. Its been about 6 months since we've had to use it. He's been eating and drinking and taking his medicine orally with no problems. After meeting them, they agreed, and Atticus is now G-TUBE FREE!!!! That's right! I said NO G-TUBE!! Hooray!!! It is such an awesome feeling to be rid of it! After he had it removed, and I was carrying him out to the car, I realized that it was the first time in his entire life (3 years, 6 months, and 11 days) that I had held him with absolutely no medical equipment attached to him. No IVs, no sensors, no ventilators...no G-tube. *choke*. God continues to bless us greatly, even amongst our trials!!
I decided then, that we deserved a walk on the beach after such a long day. Thankfully, my older sister lives in Charleston, about 5 mins away from the hospital. So while we waited on her to get off work, Atticus and I spent about an hour playing on the Isle of Palms. He had a blast and thoroughly tired himself out. Then we went to my sister's house to spend the night and await surgery the next day.
Atticus' surgery was scheduled for 1pm. We had to check in by 9:30am, just in case they could squeeze us in earlier. By 10:30AM, Atticus was having a full on tantrum in the floor of the waiting room because I told him he couldn't have anything to eat or drink. He was ripping through the diaper bag (which normally has some sort of snack) and frantically signing "more food, cup, hungry, and please". I was not looking forward to the next few hours. Then they called us back to the Pediatric Holding Area where there were plenty of toys to distract him. And by 11:00AM, it was like a completely different child! He didn't ask for anything once as he happily played for the next few hours. (God bless you, whoever you are, for donating those toys...they were a life saver!!). At around 1:30PM, they wheeled him back for surgery.
Thankfully, the procedure only lasted about an hour, so by 2:30PM, Atticus was in the PACU recovering. Dr Bradley said that everything had gone smoothly. They had removed the bottom 2 chest wires and the granulated tissue surrounding them. The skin over the lump was stretched pretty thin, but he'd taken care of that too. While I waited for him to wake up from the anesthesia, I went to pick up his prescription for pain...which took forever. He had started to wake up by the time I got back. After a little nausea from the anesthesia, we were discharged and on the way home by 6:45PM! That's our shortest stay yet!!
He was starting to feel better yesterday, although he did some extra cuddling and took an extra long nap. Today, he's been his usual Wild Man self. We had a follow-up with his cardiologist, Dr Williams, today. He said that everything looked great, and that he would go ahead and file the paperwork to get Atticus's Pre-Fontan work-up scheduled. *sigh*. From one surgery onto the next. At least that won't be until July.
So, as you can see, its been a busy week here for us. An unexpected surgery, but also saying "Good-bye" to the G-tube. God continues to bless us with great doctors, nurses, friends and family. Atticus has a lot of healing to do before July, so please "Keep on prayin'!"
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