Ben's Surgery

With Chris being out of work for a while, we took a vacation to his Granny and Grandpa's house in Lynchburg, TN. They have a house on a lake where there is not a lot of people. We enjoyed relaxing after a hectic few weeks. It was during this time that we noticed that Ben was spitting up. Since the beginning, Ben did not spit up. He ate well and burped after every feeding. This spitting up shocked us. We just figured that this was the next step of him being a baby. We really noticed it on Friday, June 24 and it got worse on the 25th. Little did we know that this was more then just spit up.

I did not go to church on Sunday because I got little sleep Saturday night while attending to Benjamin. We went to the doctor on Monday morning to check out what was wrong. We thought going in that he had reflux pretty badly. We saw the doctor and described our situation. We told him about him not keeping his food down, but he was not crying and still liked to eat. With this information, the doctor believed it was reflux. He told us to put rice cereal in his formula so that his food would stay down because of it's thickness. He also told us to sleep him sitting up in a swing or his carrier seat. We did what the doctor said. He seemed to be doing ok Monday night and Tuesday, though he still spit up pretty badly. We put him to bed Tuesday night and waited to see what happened. It was about to get worse.

We went to bed at midnight. Right after Chris turned the light out, he heard Ben stirring. He got up, turned on the light, and then saw Ben projectile vomit over a large distance. He got worried and let my mother-in-law know. We both knew it got worse. We called the doctor's office to see if anyone was on call. Chris talked to a nurse and described the situation. She told us to go to the Children's Hospital ER. When we got there, they decided that he needed an ultrasound to check to see what his stomach looked like. After the doctor saw the ultrasound, she concluded that he had pyloric stenosis. Pyloric stenosis is a condition where the pyloric muscle (the muscle that connects the stomach to the intestines) is enlarged to a point where food cannot pass through. The only way to fix this was for Ben to have surgery and to have it immediately. When we heard this, we were heartbroken. Our five week old was about to go under the knife.

Ben was admitted to a room and had surgery later that day. He was such a trooper. Because his electrolytes were not regular, he had to get an IV in his forehead and not in his arm or leg. I had to leave the room when they put the IV in. Chris said that he almost had to leave. After he got a room, we waited a few hours before he went into surgery. Saying goodbye to him before he went was so hard. We knew that the Lord was good in all of this situation, yet it was still heartbreaking. We would have gladly taken his place. The surgery lasted just under an hour. The surgeon said that everything went well. We were elated!

The next 36 hours involved Ben learning how to keep his food down while this muscle was recovering. He could not leave the hospital until he kept his food down. He didn't keep his first round of food down, which is normal in recovery. By Friday morning, he had kept all of his food down. We left the hospital a little before noon. We were so glad to finally be bringing our sweet boy home!

During this time of trial, we were so blessed with all of the sweet words of encouragement and prayer. If anything, Facebook and Twitter are wonderful ways to let others know of burdens and trials. We know that our son was being prayed for, and for that we are so grateful. We are happy to say that Ben has fully recovered and is doing wonderfully. He loves to eat and he is not vomiting anymore! We no longer worry when he sleeps, wondering if he could possibly suffocate. Yet again, the Lord has proven himself faithful.