I am wondering how the recovery is for a "bigger" kid. Molly is 6 and scheduled for a lap. fundo on Nov 21. The doctor said she would be able to return to school the next Monday (we are doing it over Thanksgiving break) with no problem. He said we should be in the hospital 2-3 days and then home recovering 2-3- days. I am wondering what the reality is. How about returning to eating? She is not a real good eater right now and I am worried that it is going to get worse before it gets better. The last thing we need is another food aversion! I am just trying to mentally prepare, I am sooo much calmer when I understand how things should work.

Thanks!

Hi Ashley,

I have heard that the older the better and easier it is so I will be anxious to hear how it goes. She will probably be OK physically to return to school assuming all goes well but she will be far from recovery. She will still be sore, weak, tired, and hungry, and probably ticked off.

It will probably take about 6 weeks to get used to the wrap. Atleast she can tell you how she is feeling now so that will be a huge help. Adults have told me the hardest part is the wrap, you can feel it, and it is swollen so eating is difficult and hard to get used to. She may choke and gag on it because until she is used to it will feel like something is stuck. This is coming from adults who have had the surgery, my 2 1/2 year old at the time couldnt talk so I talked to alot of adults to ask them. She wont be able to burp either so that will hard to get used too.. Stay away from gassy foods!

Also, adults said it took them a good 6 weeks to believe they made the right choice. So, hang in there. Let me know how it goes! Best wishes with it! Stock up on gogurts, jello, and campbell soups. And, probably some pediasure stuff.

I am sorry to hear that your dd will have to have the fundo done.I have three children that have had fundos and two of them were older when it was done. I cant believe that your surgeon is allowing your child to go right back to school. I know for my own children they were told to take it easy for anywhere from a week to two weeks before getting back to normal things. I also no that each child is different and recover differently so that may be an issue for your dd.

My dd was 5yrs old and my ds was 7yrs old when there fundos were done. My dd had a rough first couple days and was really ill for about the first 5day post surgery. My son did very well for the first week and then things went down hill from there. I know for eating neither one of my children did very well with food in the begininng. The had to take it very slowly and build up. I do also know that they did tire easily in the begining also.

I still cant believe that they have your dd going so quickly but I guess that is the way your surgeon does it. The reason I say this is that it is still major surgery and they are reconstructing a muscle to make it work. Finally sorry forgot some kids are in pain and can retch after surgery for awhile after eating due to all the swelling in the esophagus. I am just giving you some outcomes but I also know some kids that have done great and had no problems post surgery. If you want to ask any specific questions please feel free to do so. I do wish you luck and hope for the best.

Melanie

I am most concerned about how I am going to feed her the first few weeks. She is allergic (extremely intolerant!) to milk, so yogurt and ice cream are out, and soup would not cross her lips in a million years. No mashed potatoes, pudding is a maybe. She currently lives on applesauce, cheese slices, chicken nuggets (not the real kind like chik-fil-a), fish sticks and fruit. We do supplement with Boost and she takes multi-vitamins. You would be amazed at what a robust child she is - you would never in a milllion years guess that there was anything wrong with her! We never have been able to figure that out!! She was FTT until about 1, now she is in the 85% in height and weight, her little bit of "extra padding" may be our saving grace.

Just out of curiosity, if she seems to feel so well and is in the 85th percintile what is the reason for the fundo? Good surgeons only perform it if the reflux itself is causing serious secondary issues. If your child seems fine now, than you may not be happy with the results. The fundo has serious side effects possibly, and alot of cases more so than reflux. We did it because our son had low immune system, and the reflux was spilling over into lungs, ears, sinuses, causing recurring infections.

If it is wasnt for those, I would not have done the surgery, because we deal with now because of the surgery would not have made it worth it. I would rather have the reflux. But, for the others it has made it worth it.

Not to discourage you, I am sure you are doing the right thing for your daughter, I just hadn't read yet why it is being done :D

Her health is not as robust as her size. She has had pneumonia four times, contant ear infections and upper respiratory issues. Her teeth are full of holes and have all had to be sealed so that they will last long enough to fall out. The reflux has damaged her lungs and weakend her immune system greatly...she even managed to get whooping cough last year even though she has been vaccinated. She had tubes and adenoids done when she was 3 and it made a little difference, but not much. The main factor for the fundo is that she has maxed out her meds (40mg Nexium, 20 mg Reglan) and is still having lots of reflux. She cannot be active without lots of coughing and subsequent vomitting. Again, we are astounded at how she manages to maintain herself.
I guess that good thing about all of this is that she doesn't know how sucky her life has been so far, it's just how life is for her. But things are getting more complicated as she gets older and her peers have begun to notice that she takes medicine at school and can't participate as fully in PE and recess and that she has special permission to leave the class if she needs to throw up - and that embarrasses her, she finally realized that she is different.
The GI has been trying to get us to do the surgery for 3 years, we held it out as an absolute last otption. I have a younger cousin who had an open fundo when he was 12 (4 years ago, they had no idea that he had reflux until his throat swelled shut and he ended up in the ER) and I have seen how it affected him. He is ok, but it certainly didn't "cure" anything. I just hope that she finds some relief when it is all over.

She sounds like Eli!

He was able to maintain his weight too. I have no idea how! It is amazing, he has always been a chub.... and he was a huge puker!

Funny you mention whooping cough, it seems to be going around, weird, never heard of people getting it until now, I have seen several in my family, and they were all vaccined.

How old was she when she started problems with her teeth began to arise? I worry about that with Eli.

Yeah, the kicker with the DTP vaccine is that the P (pertussis, whooping cough) wears off after 6 or 7 years, that's how they think she got it...it was wearing off and her weakened immune system couldn't fight it. It took like 6 dr visits to figure out what it was! Finally, her GI heard her go into a bout and identified it immediately. They had been telling us it was asthma, so she had been going to school - it is a wonder that she didn't infect the whole place! It did, however, explain why the breathing treatments weren't working!!

Her teeth started looking bad about 2 1/2. I thought she had a ton of cavities and had a real hard time finding a dentist that would see her at such a young age. She did have 1 cavity, but what I was seeing was shadows from the pits that covered her teeth - they looked like swiss cheese. She hasn't had any problems since they were sealed, it took sooooo long to get them all done (the ped. dentist on our plan only comes to town - and not even the one we live in! - once a month, by the time our appointment came and we needed to do the next step, we had to wait two months because the next month was alreadt full :evil: ) that she ended up with two more little cavities.

Oh, wow, I wonder if I should get Eli looked at.

And, about the whooping cough, wow, that is what happened to my sister. She kept taking my 11 year old nephew in and they put him on breathing treatments, asthma treatments, antibiotics, you name it, then she finally took him to the childrens hospital after 3 weeks and got the diagnosis, we ALL had to take antibiotics, the whole family!