A Month Later

A month has now gone by since Keziah's surgery. Her healing continues to go well, although in the last few days we've noticed that some of her incisions have opened up a bit. So we are back to applying Polysporin on those parts. And speaking of Polysporin, thanks to all who gave me advice as to how to get that stuff out of our clothes. What I tried and it worked was Dawn dishsoap (thanks, Val!). A reader of the blog also told me that it got Aquaphor out as well, another greasy ointment. So that is good news!!

Here is what her incisions looked like a week ago:

Today, there is a teeny tiny split in her skin graft and the larger opening is on the incision in her hair. As for the pinkness of the skin graft, Dr. Zuker did say it takes about 8 months or so for the incisions and skin graft to lose that colour.

Our goof!

When we go to see Dr. Zuker in September, we will ask about the skin puckering between her eyes, closer to her left eye and eyebrow. We will also ask about the forehead part of her skull. There is now quite a ridge from where the expander was. The expander has made a dent into her forehead bone. We aren't sure if they can do anything about either of them but we'll see. Below you can see the puckering of the skin by her left eyebrow. You can't really see the dented forehead. I can but that's because I know where it is. It's the shiny part in the middle of her forehead and it goes down on an angle.

Keziah does not really talk about what all has happened in the last months. It's not a matter of her not wanting to, it's just that she's moved on. The only way it shows that she's been through something is when she plays doctor. Good thing she usually has a willing patient! This guy is a champ for putting up with all her antics! :o)

One time she wanted to put on her doctor's outfit so she could play with her Playmobil hospital kit.

We are so thankful that there hasn't been any complications so far. We will keep on top of those opened spots so infection does not set in. We are also very thankful that emotionally, she seems to have handled everything well. She does NOT like anyone to touch her face and is very protective over it, but that is to be expected. There is that thick coarse hair that continues to grow on her eyebrow and to cut them is quite the ordeal for her. But hopefully over time, she will gain confidence that it does not hurt for me to do that.

When I had surgery as a child (tonsils out), I had nightmares for quite a few years about it all. I was concerned that Keziah would too. She has always struggled with night terrors and in the last months she has felt the need to sleep walk, but so far none of her night terrors are about the hospital or doctors or anything of the like. It's the typical "there are elephants in my room!!!!" kind of night terrors, with her eyes as big as saucers (bigger than my eyes, and if you know me, that's BIG!). As heartwrenching as it is, trying to help her to see that there are no elephants (or whatever it is that particular night) in her room, I am so thankful that they have nothing to do with the last few months.

(now that I look at that above picture, I think you can see the dented forehead a bit better. It's where the expander laid on it and the bone had formed around it)

We are loving this summer and it is never far from our minds that the if the initial dates stuck, we would just be finishing up our last fill, with surgery happening sometime around now. It makes us so grateful that it all happened in late June instead.