the boy who lived

It has been a long 48 hours for our family to say the least. Bare with me as I attempt to recap and over simplify the events. When writing this, I struggled to compose a clear and concise story as I kept bouncing back and forth between Trevor and Hudson's surgeries so for the sake of accuracy, I am going to detail their stories separately.

Hudson, Morgan and I were admitted to Seattle Children's (SCH) on Sunday morning so they could spend most of the morning/afternoon completing all pre-op blood work, X-rays, consents, etc...Hudson was happy as could be and continued to charm nurses and doctors alike.

After all tests were complete, Hudson was able to spend time with Trevor and his grandparents.

On Monday, Trevor arrived at University of Washington around 5:30am to be admitted and be made ready for surgery. He was wheeled off and surgeons began working on him around 7:30 - 08:00am. The first part of Trevor's surgery was mainly exploratory meaning that they were confirming the location of the artery, bile duct and veins in the portion of Trevor's liver that they were going to remove. Once this was confirmed, they began removing to left lobe of his liver.

Surgeons successfully removed a segment of Trevor's liver and delivered it to SCH early afternoon. We received notification around 3:30pm that Trevor was out of surgery and recovering in the ICU. Leave it to Trevor to make even organ donation look effortless and easy.

Hudson went with surgeons around 08:00am and received at call around 10:15am saying that they were beginning to remove Hudson's liver. Several hours later we got confirmation that Trevor's left lobe was in Hudson and they were beginning to connect all veins and arteries. This was a long process and when I say long, I mean L-O-N-G. It was later explained to us that it took several attempts to construct the arteries large enough to where surgeons felt confident that enough blood would get to the liver. This added quite a bit of time to the surgery. Due to the increased time in surgery and extended time receiving fluids, Hudson was too swollen to close the incisions in his belly so doctors packed his abdominal cavity with gauze and what looks like sterile seran wrap and will complete closing belly in a couple of days when the swelling goes down. Since his belly is exposed, there are two things that must be done. The first is that the doctors will continue to sedate Hudson to minimize moving around. The standard procedure after surgery would be to get the patient moving around as quickly as possible however, they want to minimize Hudson's movements so they will continue to sedate him and keep him comfortable until after his stomach is closed. Because he needs to be sedated, Hudson will continue to have his breathing tube in. Again, standard procedure would try and have the breathing tube out right after surgery but because he is sedated, they want to make sure he has no issues with breathing and resting.

Surgeons completed the transplant and transferred Hudson to the ICU around 11:00pm. Morgan and I were allowed to see him somewhere around midnight. The longest almost 16 hours of our lives.

What next?

The following days are all about stabilizing Hudson and getting his swelling down so surgeons can finishing closing him up. Once his incisions are closed, doctors will try to slowly take him off sedation and take out his breathing tube.

What does this all mean? Well, this means that the next few days are reserved for some R&R.

Note from our family

Yesterday was probably the hardest day of our lives. During those 16 hours of waiting, we received support from all around the globe and it could not have been more helpful or appreciated. It's amazing how at your lowest and most vulnerable point, you see and realize all the love and good in this world. Thank you for being part of that good. The nurses, doctors and hospital staff have frequently asked us how we are able to cope so well and with great pride, we explain our journey and how you all have helped us on it.

xoxo,

Jordan, Morgan, Hudson, Dude & Jax