week and a half post op stage 2 - pic warning!

Ok, I know I had a huge breakdown there, but I needed it. I'd been holding it in since shortly after she was born. We're reaching the end of what feels like a very long tunnel, and I needed to partially put the burden down now that we are fairly certain we are done with surgeries for her. It was an old-fashioned cleansing cry, know what I mean?

That said - she is healing nicely. We took the sponge off on Monday evening, and we were a tad stunned. It looked pretty raw. After a reassuring e-mail from Dr. Reinisch, who told us that this was a typical look for right after the sponge comes off, we went about our business.

The steri-strip on her "donor site," which is another way of saying skin graft location, came off this past Sunday evening, and it's healing up fine. It's a little rougher looking than the after the stage 1 surgery, but I'm continually amazed at how quickly and well her little body goes to work healing itself.

So, now, she's basically just itching and scratching, scratching and itching. The stitches are the melt away kind, and once they start to work their way loose, they do itch something awful. It's constant work keeping her little mitts off of them.

As for school, most of the kids have been really cool about it. If there's been any freak outs, I haven't been in the loop on them. She has gone to the office for a few things since we've been home. All essentially false alarms. She did start to bleed a little during library time this week, but it stopped quickly. I think it was caused from the big headphones they wear during computer time. That kind of thing wasn't a problem when she was in preschool!

So, here's the latest in pictures:


This is just prior to John removing the sponge.....this is one week post-op:



This is immediately after the removal of the sponge:



You can see that it's standing out quite a ways from her head and seemed exceedingly deep to us. However, within hours it had started to work its way back toward her head. Also, Dr. Reinisch assured us that they tend to overcorrect a little because the donor skin shrinks up as it heals.

A better look at the depth:



And from under - the ear seems to be in a slightly more even spot with the other ear now.



Here's the "donor site" from her stomach as of last Sunday:




And our sweet cutie:



And here she is with Dr. Reinisch. We are so incredibly grateful to him for all his help. Really, there aren't words I can find.



Until next week....

post op

And I'm emotionally wrecked. Six years of build up, trying to be strong, figuring out what to do, watching carefully, testing, surgery, phone calls, grief, acceptance, and everything just came spilling out in the form of tears dripping on my husband's shirt.

When your child says, "I don't like this. It hurts. Why did I have to have surgery? Why was I born without an ear?" and you don't have an answer, it's quite possibly the most painful feeling I've ever experienced.

I've wanted, since the moment she was born, to take this from her and bear it myself. So has John. But, this is her journey. My prayer is that she'll come out of the other end of this path stronger, wiser, and full of hope, and the reason for all of this struggle will reveal itself to all of us.

All the wise thoughts that I have don't take away the kick in the gut of your daughter crying and asking why she was born the way she was.

I'll update details on the surgery tomorrow. I needed to put this out of my head tonight.

Operation Day!

So today was the big day. We woke up at 5:00 am, (ouch!) and got rolling. Adrenalin is a strange thing - on any other day I would have been totally dragging. Today? Up, going, and ready to roll when I needed to be.

We got to the surgery center and checked in. They have a kids' room, so that's certainly handy. We had to wait for a little bit, but not too bad.

Dr. Jumper, quite possibly the nicest guy EVER, was Kelley's anesthesiologist again, and he came by shortly after she had taken the Verced. Verced, or, as Dr. Jumper calls it, Milk of Amnesia, is pretty much the standard for "taking the edge off." It's pre-anesthesia, I guess.




You can see by the pictures how much she LOVED taking the Verced.

Well, once again, we've learned that Kelley should NOT join a sorority at a party college when she's older. She's hysterically loopy when she's on this stuff. Quite humorous. She's very giggly and goofy, using her arms in big gestures....Wait - who am I talking about? Me? Or my daughter?

Anyway - after a time she was wheeled back and the surgery began.

She was finished around 10:00 or so, and wheeled back to recovery around 10:15. We were there waiting. This is the reality of surgery for your kid:


I wouldn't recommend it. It can be pretty gut-wrenching.

The good news? The surgery went smoothly, and all seems to be fine. Here's some details:

1) Dr. Reinisch took a skin graft from the same area as stage 1 reconstruction, only a smaller area. Unfortunately, it's seeping blood. Yew. The good news, though, is that it is a MUCH smaller area, and it doesn't have the marcaine suction dealie. Steri-strips for about a week, and they should come off naturally.

2) The area is secured by a sponge and some sutures:



The good news? We get to take the sutures off ourselves. Yay. Not really. Hopefully, with a little help from Papa Gene, that will go smoothly. We are to take them off in about a week.

3) She can resume normal activities in about 2-3 weeks.

4) Interesting little side note: apparently, there was a large plug in her ear, formed from skin and other biological 'stuff.' Dr. Reinisch said "I'm surprised she could hear. It was quite large." Her ear doesn't produce wax naturally, but apparently it does produce something. Not sure what. At any rate, we apparently should have been having her ear canal cleaned out by an ENT every 4-6 months. This is something that wasn't told to us at any time. Granted, we had some difficulties communicating with her local ENT, and I'm wondering if that is where the breakdown occurred. She went for quite some time without specialized care.

So, what that means is that it's quite possible her last audiogram was occluded by the plug. When we return to Portland, I will schedule another audiogram sometime in January so that we can get an accurate audiogram.

So, tomorrow we have a post-operative appointment with Dr. Reinisch, and then we are going to try to change our flight and head out a day early. It would be really nice to come home.

Until tomorrow....thanks for reading and for your thoughts & prayers.