A Week Later....

Here we are, a week past surgery where two expanders were placed into Keziah's scalp. Keziah is doing very well and you would never have known even 3 days later that she was in the O.R. room for a few hours. She picked up where she left off the day before surgery, sassy and girly as I'll get out. The only difference we could see was physically.

When she woke up in the recovery room, she right away complained of a very sore neck. Her neck bothered her for a few days afterwards, and it's no wonder. About 4 days later, this is what her neck looked like:

No, she is not jaundiced. That is all bruising!! And the yellow and green didn't stop there. Over the weekend, we noticed quite a bruised hairline and skin graft. Not sure if you can see it in these pictures or not...

(don't mind the frown. She's four going on 16....:o)

To take her mind off of her discomfort, a few of her friends and cousins came over to play.

The bruising is now pretty well gone, and so is the swelling. This means we can really see those expanders. So where are they and how big are they?

Well, do you recall her last two expanders? Let me find a picture of them....

Big, eh?! Wow. At its fullest, the forehead expander had 215 cc's and the cheek one had 135.

So you can imagine how quickly our jaws dropped to the ground when Dr. Zuker told us after surgery that he placed an expander on the top of her head that fills up to 680 cc's and one in the back of her head that fills up to 500 cc's. That's right....triple the size of those expanders you see in the pictures above!! Is that even possible?! Oh yes. Thanks to the very supportive nevus group we belong to, we know that expanders can be even larger, over 1000 cc's. And we also know the skin can be stretched successfully (usually) that much.

Actually, he first told us that the one on her head was 860 cc's. I think I asked him 4 times "860 cc's??! Really???! That big?! Are you serious??!?". And then after a few minutes he said, "Oh wait, not 860 cc's, but 680 cc's.". I think that may have been his way to keep us from having a heart attack, for after all, 680 sounds so much better than 860 does it not? It does....until you remember the size of her previous expanders and you couldn't believe how big those ones were. Apparently, those were nothin'!

In another 10 days or so, we start slowly filling up the two expanders. The top one already has 60 cc's and the back one has 35. We will see Dr. Zuker on Thursday, December 5th (Happy Sinte Klaus to us!) for her first fill. I will not be anxious, I will not be anxious, I will not be anxious, I will not be.....

I did take some pictures of her scalp nevus before surgery, which I will post next time. It'll make sense as to why the expanders need to be so big.

Take care, and thanks for reading!!