It's Around the Corner.....

What is, you ask? The next part of this journey, the journey we have chosen for our daughter to remove her birthmark.

It has been awhile since we walked this road, almost a year and half since her last surgery. We have enjoyed many months of no hospital visits, which we are thankful for. Keziah has healed up really well from her last surgery, which encourages us. This encouragement is needed because the stomach is starting to clench and the sleep has started to elude us (well, me), as the surgery day gets closer.

While it is helpful to know we've been down this route, and we know what to expect, it is also at the same time scary. We know what is ahead! While it's nice to be familiar with the surgery and the procedures that are to follow (weekly expansion fills), it is also terrifying that we are about to embark on this again.

This week was filled with phone calls from Sick Kids in prep for Tuesday. Keziah also had her pre-op done, which she did with no problems, even with lots of smiles! Well, lots of smiles until she needed her blood taken :o(

To get her blood taken, we had to go to the Lab here in town, the same place we went almost 2 years ago as we prepared for that surgery. As I parked in, our conversation went like this:
"Mom, have I been here before?"
I hadn't told her yet why we were there so I answered:
"I don't know......have you?"
"Yup! I remember I was here before and I cried and cried and cried. I just don't remember why I was crying."

Sigh. I didn't tell her until they called her name what she was there for. Although she cried and was not too impressed, she did a great job! And so a sprinkle donut was in order!!

So what exactly will be happening on Tuesday? We will be at Sick Kids bright and early, 6 am to be exact. She goes in at 8 and they say she'll be in surgery until 12. During this time, Dr. Zuker and his team will be placing two expanders in her scalp. They say to count on her being in the hospital for 3 days (last time they said the same thing and she stayed 2 days). Recovery shouldn't be too bad, just two incisions with 10 or so stitches each.

Then about 10 days or so later, we start going to Sick Kids every week to have those expanders filled. It'll have to be done slowly, as we are now dealing with stretching skin that is covered in hair. We need to be careful with the hair follicles, so they are not stretched too much. We need all that hair because once the expanders are large enough (2 or 3 months from now), they will remove what they can from the side of her scalp and place the stretched skin with the hair where the nevus was.

So basically, she is going to go through exactly what she had before, except this time the expanders will be on her head, whereas last time the expanders were on her forehead and cheek.

While we had thought we would just leave the nevus on her scalp (although large, covering most of the left side of her head, you can't really see it as it blends in with her dark hair), over time we have come to realize that there is a risk of her losing all her hair from her nevus in her twenties. Every time we waiver in our decision to go ahead with this removal, another adult joins the nevus support group that we belong to, and lo and behold, they've lost hair from their scalp nevus. Being a girl, we just can not let this risk go. And so that is why we are dealing with it now, rather than wait to see if it'll happen to her or not (because remember, it doesn't happen to all scalp nevi).

So how does Keziah feel about all this? Stay tuned......I'll post about this in a few days.

Thank you for reading! So many of  you have shown us support, it's been amazing. Your encouraging words but most especially your prayers have carried us through to this point. We ask that you continue to pray on our behalf, that God calms our fears and that we may rest in the knowledge that He has everything in His hands, including the well-being of our precious daughter.