The Plan

Two more nights sleeping! Definitely a mix of emotions going on. On one hand, we are eager to get this show on the road; on the other hand we are oh so nervous. Last night I read her a story about going to the hospital and briefly touched upon certain aspects of going to the hospital. We talked about getting a bracelet with her very own name on it. She'll also get to wear special pajamas and that I'll be sleeping with her. Well. THAT was the most exciting part for her!!! So exciting that today, when I told her we were going to the doctor's, she started jumping up and down saying "We get to sleep together!!" :o)

This journey of hers will all start bright and early Thursday morning. We will need to be at Toronto Sick Kids by 6:30 in the morning. She'll be going into surgery at 8:30 and will come out 4 hours later. In those 4 hours, Dr. Zuker will be putting a tissue expander under the skin on her forehead, beside her birthmark. He will also put a tissue expander in her cheek, under the birthmark.

A tissue expander is like a balloon, which will slowly be filled up with saline to stretch the skin.

If you so desire, you can use google images to see what a "forehead tissue expander" look likes. But I warn you.....the first few images could take your breath away, as it is remarkable in how these tissue expanders work. It'll also give you an idea as to what she will look like with them (yes, it made me cry when I first saw it). I also warn you that tissue expanders are not only used on the face, so censoring would be a good idea :o)

Once the tissue expanders are in, each will have a port with a tube under the skin to the expander (see above picture). This is necessary for the weekly fill-ups of the saline., which will happen about 10 days or so after surgery.

If all goes well, she'll be in the hospital for three days and we hope to go home on Saturday.

We will then be driving to Sick Kids every week for them to insert more saline. This will not be fun as it means needles for her on her face.

After about 3 months of these weekly trips, the expanders should be large enough and she will have two very big "balloons" on her head. Once Dr. Zuker is satisfied that the skin has stretched enough, she'll go in for a big surgery in where they will take the expanders out, which will leave saggy skin (I tell people it's like a pregnancy.....the skin stretches as the baby grows and then once the baby is born, the mother is left with the stretched skin). He will then cut off as much of the birthmark as possible and pull the saggy skin over to cover what he took off. He can't just put the skin over top of the birthmark because he needs to get rid of the hair roots, which is in the deepest tissue of the skin. The saggy skin on the cheek will be pulled up as far as it can go.

That will leave her with quite a few stitches. Once that all heals (about 6 months), we will need to do some skin grafting to get the rest of the birthmark off her face. He will be using skin from behind her ears as that skin is the closest to facial skin.

As any surgery or procedure, there are risks. For this first surgery there is a risk of hitting a nerve that goes from the ear to the forehead. If that is hit, she'll lose all muscle control and feeling in her forehead.

Once the expanders are in, there are the risks of the expander popping; of it going through the skin, which would be terrible because that means the "good" skin is now ruined; of infection; of scars; of face distortion. He has to be careful on how far he pulls the saggy skin over so he doesn't take the good eyebrow over and have it sitting in the middle of her forehead. But this doctor is well-known for his work, with his specialty being in facial reconstruction, cleft lips/palates and birthmarks. And so we trust him.

So as you can see, it surely is quite a journey for a little girl. All in all, it'll be about a 1.5 - 2 year process.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a tough day as we will have to leave this little guy,

until Saturday. Thankfully we know he will be very well taken care of by our close friends, Doug and Karen. We also know he will be well-entertained by their kids! We will miss Lincoln so much, but we know that in a few days we will be all together as a family again.

And, just because I find a blog post boring without too many pictures, here are a few to enjoy:

Lincoln's reaction when I told him where he will be going for a few days :o)


One would think this poor girl's mother would give her a break, especially knowing what's coming up (by the way, she ASKED to go into the corner because she figured then she wouldn't have to eat her supper :o)


Two of my many blessings, sharing a moment together


Never forgetting Who has all things in control


(P.S. I figured out how to change it so that anyone can now comment; you do not need a URL or whatever. You can just click anonymous. If you do, remember to put your name at the end of your comment or else we won't know who it is from :o)