We are back in Pittsburgh for Lindsey’s long-awaited follow up surgery. When she had her liver transplant, the surgeons left her abdominal muscles open to allow room for the new liver to swell (which is normal). Now that her new liver is (blessedly) working well and isn’t swollen, she needed her abdominal muscles sewn closed in the front.

Once she recovers from this, she will be able to lift things again and start working out, so she’s very excited about that. It’s a pretty painful recovery for the first 6 weeks or so, though. 

She had the muscle repair surgery yesterday, and it went very well. Some of you may remember that we originally tried to have this surgery in December 2021, but were unable to because of a fracture in Lindsey’s tailbone. After that false alarm, and 2 previous false alarms for transplant, we were sort of holding our breath on whether this time we would be able to proceed.

In order to fully close Lindsey’s muscles the surgeons also sewed in a mesh made of connective tissue from pig skin. We joked with Lindsey that she was no longer Kosher… but the surgeon said this particular mesh, which doesn’t include any pig cells – just connective tissue – has been approved by both Jewish (Chabad) rabbis and by Islam. Apparently this has been a concern for some other families.

The team at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh is doing a great job managing Lindsey’s pain proactively. In fact, I think she was a little TOO pain-free yesterday; she was sitting up and rolling over and doing all kinds of things that probably aggravated her actual pain level. It seems like one of the meds in Lindsey’s epidural lowered her blood pressure too much, so that particular medication has been discontinued. She’s still on Dilautid, Toridol, Tylenol, and pain patches though.

Right now, Mike and Pam are both in Pittsburgh with Lindsey. We expect her to stay inpatient through the rest of this week or through the weekend, and then about another week in our hotel. She’ll need to come back to the hospital several days that first week once she is discharged for lab tests. Hopefully we’ll get to go home to Michigan the weekend of May 21-22.

In the meantime, Mike is planning to head to Florida around May 18 to attend a party to celebrate his Aunt Ruth’s 100th birthday! His aunt may or may not even realize that he’s there, but it will be great for him to be able to see many family members again for the first time in 2+ years.