Good evening.
Four years ago at this very moment David was being prepped for a CT scan of his belly. He was 5 days out from limb-salvage surgery, and he was extremely sick. His bowels hadn't woken up from surgery yet, and they didn't know why. He kept vomiting, and the tube down his nose into his belly was sucking green bile, so earlier in the day he had had an endoscopy, and they still didn't know what was wrong. They found a lot of internal trauma from vomiting, and his ulcer, but no conclusive reason why he was vomiting. After the endoscopy we noticed he was laying in a pool of blood, so they knew something was wrong! He had been given several blood transfusions throughout the 5 days, but he was still passing blood, and they didn't know why. So they decided (after multiple xrays every day) to do a CT of his belly. Then they found the intussusception. At midnight the pediatric surgeon came to David's room and told us they were gathering the surgical team together and they will be doing emergency surgery on David ASAP. They knew he had an intussusception, but they were also going to do some exploratory surgery while they were in there. That is when they removed 15 inches of his bowel and resected it. They told us he might come out of surgery with a colostomy, but he didn't. We were very thankful for that. They told us he was pretty bad off inside. Basically, he should have died. (Left untreated, a person will die within 2 to 5 days of an intussusception.) He was bleeding internally, and his bowels were extremely necrotic, and he should have died. My son has an incredible will to live! He is such a tough kid. These memories are difficult for us, but we are so glad they are just memories! David has been through so much, and we are so thankful he is still alive; and doing well. We praise God for the doctors and how they saved his life. Two very major surgeries in 6 days. David, thankfully, doesn't remember much about those 5 days. He does remember that the emergency surgery is the ONLY one of all 12 surgeries that he wasn't scared about. He just knew the surgery would take his pain away. Recovery was very difficult as he tried to heal from both of those back-to-back surgeries. My poor son's young body is so covered with scars; we call them 'war wounds.' He fought a battle, and (so far) won. We just pray he continues to win this battle. We remember this time like it was yesterday. Surgery started at 1:00am and ended at 5:30am. Bryon and I walked the halls of the hospital all night long. I think it was one of the longest nights of our lives! We are so thankful to be on the 'other side' of that nightmare! David medically should have been dead, but he's not! Praise God!!
I just thought I would post where we were 4 short (long?) years ago. I wanted to remind you old-timers (and inform newcomers) of how far David has come in his journey. Thank you for visiting and checking in on David. Thanks for reading. God bless you all. We love you.
(The picture above is the day after the emergency surgery)
Kristi and the Koury Klan
"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us"~~E.M. Forster
