better than expected

so even though i expected Dr. P. to declare his stoma infected, he did not!
yet.
what he did say, was that he feels it looked better than HE expected it to, and that it is on the verge of being closed.
and it has some signs of yeast. 
so I suppose there is some infection, but not the sort we are concerned about.

here's the vicious circle in which we have been stuck:

chronically inflamed stoma takes longer to heal
stoma is leaking because it is taking longer to heal
we cannot leave the stoma open to air (which would pomote drying and healing) because it is leaking
stoma is becoming even more inflamed because it is leaking and we have to keep it covered so the acids are just sitting on the inflamed skin.
skin is "friable" (fragile, easily torn) due to the contact with the stomach acid.
inflamation causes longer healing time.

etc...

you get the picture. 

Dr. P. thought that since it is so near to closure, we could attempt to keep it closed with the use of surgical glue and steri strips.  he has seen minimal success in a few other patients using this method so we figured it is worth a shot. 

honestly, during the time we were there, though it leaked, it was not as bad as it had been earlier today or in the past week.  so that was encouraging.  we will see what things look like tonight since having it glued shut. 

possible problem:
if Tiernan pulls at it just right the glue can just rip off, and that would certainly cause much pain and bleeding because of his friable skin. EEK!

on a side note, Dr. P was super impressed with the cool wrap Nanny K designed to use instead of the cumbersome ace wrap.  he agrees with me that she needs to start an etsy site for all the great inventions she has come up with to help us with Tiernan's special needs.  i know loads of other tubie moms and dads would love these things.  and it seems the clinic could promote them for her as well.  :)  (that is unofficial, but i think they should)

so, we will call on monday with a report of how epically it failed or [fingers crossed] that it was a huge success.  if failure is the word, we will get Dr. S (cardio) on board for his opinion on how he would like us to proceed:

1. propofol sedation in either GI lab or OR for endoscopic stapling...knowing it may or may not work.  often they need to repeat this procedure a few times.

or

2. general surgery with either Dr. Lord or Dr. Borman (peds cardiac anaesthesiologists) to fully repair the site.

hard to speculate how Dr. S will lean on this one.  hopefully we won't need to find out and the super glue will do the trick!

thanks for all the prayers and good juju on our behalf.  it all makes an enormous difference!