Surgery for my Zeke

Well, my sweet Zeke needs a little surgery.
It's not a huge deal, really. The doctor says its very routine and that he does them every day. But still. It's my baby.

He has one undescended testicle. (I know, TMI, right?) We've been keeping an eye on it since birth, but since he's 7 months now and it still hasn't come down into its proper place it needs some help getting there.

Last week we saw pediatric urologist, Dr. Rink, from Riely Children's Hospital. He explained that in cases like this, there are usually 4 possible scenarios. (see diagram)

1) It could be in the scrotum, but is undeveloped and very small due to loss of blood supply during gestation. -- According to his exam, this has about 0% chance of being the case.

2) It could be located in the groin area near the pelvic bone. -- Again, not likely, as determined by the exam. He said that 80% of the time he is able to feel them in the groin area by doing an external exam. So the likelihood of this being the case is about 20%.

3) It could be slightly farther up in the belly area. -- He said sometimes this happens if blood vessels are twisted during gestation.

4) It could be very far up in the abdomen. -- the "worse case scenario" and most complicated to repair.

In any case, we don't know if it's developed or not. If not, they'll go ahead and remove it to avoid rick of future testicular cancer. If it's of normal size, they'll move it down so he'll have use of it as an adult. Even with just one, he'll be able to function and reproduce normally later in life.

Dr. R. told us that the only way to know for sure which scenario we're looking at is to go ahead with surgery and scope it out. If it's 1, 2, or 3, the procedure will be fairly simple. They'll go in with a scope through a tiny slit near the bellybutton and simply push it down, using the existing blood supply. If it's the 4th, the procedure will be more invasive and time-consuming. They would make 2 small incisions on either side of the bellybutton, cut the blood vessels, move the testicle down, and reroute the blood flow to the proper area.

So we're scheduled for 7:30 am on Monday March 28th up at Riley in Indianapolis. It's normally an outpatient procedure, so that's a relief. It's still a month off, so right now we'll just wait. I'll update more once the time comes.