Surgery Update - 1pm

It's almost 1 pm here at Children's Hospital and Anna has been in surgery for over 5 hours. We learned this morning that during the day 18 doctors from 6 different surgical teams will be working on her.

The orthopedic team was first, and have completed the first of their two stretches. They have made cuts in her pelvis to reposition the bones. They will be back later to do a graft using donor bone to help keep the pelvic bones from going out of position again.

Now the urology team is taking their turn of doing the very complex work of placing Anna's bladder inside her body and reconstructing her female parts. They discovered early on that her bladder was not large enough to ever allow normal function, and will be  performing a bladder augmentation by taking a portion from her small intestine and her appendix to increase the size of her bladder. In doing this, Anna will have to use a catheter, but she will be able to be dry for the first time in her life!

The other doctors involved at different stages of Anna's proceedure are general, gastrointestinal, gynecological, and plastic surgical teams. We will be getting updates as the day progresses.

During the initial stage of surgery this morning, KIRO News (Channel 7) was here filming for an upcoming documentary. They interviewed us and filmed Anna and Lily several weeks ago, and will be following Anna’s recuperation throughout the following months.

We must say something about how well Anna has done over the past two days. She was very excited when she entered the hospital; she was very clear why she was here. Anna's been waiting for this day for a long time. Throughout yesterday and last night, as she endured the poking, proding, throwing up, pooping, and needles, she did it with patience,dignity and grace. When she pooped on a nurse who was changing her diaper, she giggled with glee. She’s a brave little girl…and quite a character!