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....