Day Four....and Thanks!

Today, I am doing so much better. A little pain and a little tired, but mostly stir crazzzzzzzzy! Someone sent me the movie "Flushed Away" and after watching it 3 times, I then watched it in Spanish, that is pretty loco!!!! I hate this soft diet thing, but it is better than last week, at least it is getting to my stomach!

I just wanted to say Thanks to everyone who helped me. Especially to Dr. St. Peter for doing my surgery so good. I hope he keeps fixing lots and lots of kids that need help to get better.

Thanks to all my friends and family and church for visiting my blog, for sending me messages and cards and stuff and thank you for praying for me and thank you God, for listening. Thanks to Missy and Meegan for visiting me in the hospital.

Thanks to Miss Mathis and my class for helping me through everything. Thank you Mrs. Bishop and Mrs. Parrish, too. I can't wait to come back to school and see you all, hopefully very soon!

One more thing, I met a friend name Jessie, who is 12 and started having Achalasia about the same time as me. Today was her surgery at Children's Hospital in Seattle. I pray God takes care of her, too.

Signing Off My Achalasia Surgery Blog..... Love, Sam

Day Three...And The Three Amigos

We made it home from the hospital last night!!! It was a long 4 hour trip, but I did great and slept most of the way. I was so excited to be home and slept all night. Even through the tornado sirens that kept going off! This morning I had a big bowl of chocolate pudding and whip cream. I feel ready for cheese pizza and hamburger and fries and spaghetti, but the doctor said I have to stick to soft foods for awhile. My stomach is pretty sore, but I hate the taste of my pain medicine, so I'd rather tough it out, then take that.

I wasn't the only one that was glad to be home from the hospital. Dad hurt his foot playing basketball this past weekend. He is on the couch next to me watching movies all day, trying to make it better.

Buckaroo, my beagle, also got to come home from the hospital this morning. On Monday, we were getting ready to go to Kansas City and Buckaroo got loose out of the gate and he got hit by a van. Amazingly, he only needed stitches, it didn't break anything! Dr. Bacon, our vet was so nice to keep him at his hospital for us while we were gone. But he has to wear a lampshade like thing, so he won't bite at his stitches. Dr. Bacon said he has never seen a dog chew through the hoods, but Buckaroo chew through three of them while he was there, that is why you see the duct tape! We were not surprised, we should have named him Houdini! I am so glad to be home with Buckaroo!

Day Two...The Hospital

6:00 am It has now been 24 hours since I got here and I am really ready to go home. If the machine by my bed beeps one more time, I think I will go bonkers! I am still having them give me pain medication about every couple hours. This morning I will have a barium swallow to see how things are going in my esophagus. They won't give me anything to eat or drink since my surgery, but as soon as I have my barium swallow they will give me drinks. Dad and mom read everyone's comments to me, they made me smile, but not laugh! That is just too painful to think about right now.

11 am They took me to radiology to do my barium swallow. I had to drink the white chalky stuff. But unlike my barium swallow six weeks ago, where the barium just sat in my esophagus and wouldn't go through to my stomach, today it shot through to my stomach like a bullet in a gun. Yippeee!!! My surgery worked and everything looked great, no leaks anywhere!

12 am I finally got a drink, Blue Gatorade.

1 pm They even let me eat vanilla pudding and a chocolate milkshake. If that all stays down well I may get to go home very soon. I am feeling so much better. I keep moving all the controls up and down on my bed, driving mom crazy.

Day One....The Surgery

Six weeks ago, Sam was diagnosed with Achalasia, a disease of the esophagus, where the lower muscle has quit working and makes it hard for food and drink to reach his stomach, if at all. We can look a lot further back and see symptons of this disease we had never heard of, but Sam's loss of 25 pounds was the most concerning to us and eating became very frustrating for him, to the point he just quit. During the past six weeks, we have done a lot of research on Achalasia as well as the best treatments, doctors and hospitals to help Sam through this. With a lot of help from the doctors at Children’s Mercy, we decided that a Heller Myotomy was the best treatment to return Sam to normal. This surgery cuts the lower muscle to allow food to reach the stomach. They will also do a fundoplication which will wrap some of the stomach around the esophagus to help stop acid reflux from happening after the surgery.

Today is the day for Sam’s surgery. It has been a roller coaster ride of a lot of up and down days, flus, colds, rescheduled appointments, tests and even the surgery, but it has finally arrived and while we wish this week was already over, we are so looking forward to getting him better. So many of our family and friends have been praying for Sam and we have already seen so many answers and it has meant so much to us and to Sam. Thank you!



Sam’s Hospital Diary

6:00 am I arrived at Children’s Mercy Surgery. I could hardly sleep last night, I was anxious to get here.

7:00 am I saw a bunch of nurses and Dr. St. Peter and Dr. Holcomb, my surgeons. Dr. Roberts also came to see me, he is going to put a camera down my esophagus before my surgery.

8:00 am My surgery nurse, came to take me. She let me take Smelly, my favorite bear, with me to surgery. Dad and Mom had to go to the waiting room and I have to go to sleep. I chose bubble gum gas, to put me to sleep.

8:30 am Dr. Roberts told my parents that my esophagus looks great on the inside and that his job was done and he was going to let the surgeons take over.

9:00 am The nurse called my parents, they are starting the surgery. It should last 2-3 hours.

11 am The doctors sewed me up in all 5 places and went down to tell my parents that everything went Great! Excellent! Dr. St Peter showed them step by step pictures of my surgery, yuck. Dr. Holcomb who has done about 15 Heller Myotomies said it was the easiest and best one he has ever seen done.

Noon My parents met me at Reunion Avenue and they took me to my room, I didn’t feel so great and excellent! Just really tired, and on a scale of 1-10, I rated my pain about a 2, but I was slowly moving it up every few minutes, so they gave me some pain medication.

1:00 pm It worked, I am zonked out.


7:00 pm I watched my favorite show, American Idol. I pick Chris to win it all. Not the bald guy, but the guy with lots of hair.
I fell asleep before it was over and slept pretty good through the night.