Looking good!

No major changes since the last update - Angel can still only see out of her right eye but I think we will see that beautiful left eye soon. The swelling everywhere is down and the incisions are healing well. I just sent off an e-mail to Dr. B with the weekly picture updates, I look forward to seeing his reply.

Two weeks have passed already, putting us that much closer to the additional surgery to remove the excess skin where the eye and nose meet on the right side. Hope to have a date for that soon.

Now that she can see, with one eye at least, we put her back in her big girl bed on Friday night - I think we all finally got a good nights sleep! I was afraid she might throw a fit about not sleeping with me but she didn't.

I guess we do have a little "major" news, we have been continuing down the potty training trail and I think with her not seeing for 8 days she became a little more acquainted with the need to urinate and now has been peeing more when we set her on the potty!!! She has also been telling us, on occasion, that she needs to use the potty too!!! YAY! So again, the fact that she couldn't see benefited us in another way.

Do you think I eat enough?

The incision in her hair line starts straight up from her left eye and goes down, around and behind her ear lobe. If you recall, when she had the expander in that area, her lobe stretched down as well. Therefore, the lobe was separated and put back into place. This was probably the area that caused her the most discomfort and that she will still say ouch to when we apply the antibiotic ointment.

Look at that beautiful eye. Doesn't the laugh line incision look great!!!

Close up of the forehead and nose incisions. Her forehead incisions separated a bit, just as the Doctor predicted they might, but are mostly healed.

And here is my smiley face, as usual! Those laugh lines amaze me, they are going to blend so well once fully healed.

She can see!!!

So I've tried to lift her lid to get her to see without much luck and she has tried really hard to open her eyes but tonight Jason did it and we saw her right eye for the first time in over a week!!! Then it didn't take her long to figure out how to pull the top lid up on her own so she could see and she had such a huge grin on her face when she saw us. After doing it a couple times she must have pushed enough fluid out of the lid because now she can open it enough on her own to peek out and see what she is doing. She is so happy about this, as are we! It's a whole new world. What an achievement!!!

Hoping the swelling doesn't return over night and we are back to square one.

All drains are gone, eyes still too swollen

We were able to get Angel's final drain pulled yesterday, after quite a struggle with her. This one seemed to be discomforting to her when messed with. It was located behind her left ear so was a little difficult to get to as well. With Daddy holding her as tight as he could and big Brother holding the flash light, I did my best to be quick in finding the stitch and getting it clipped. I was so afraid I was going to snip skin with her moving so much but we managed to just get the stitch - wow that had my nerves in an uproar. We are now done with the sock hat now, YAY!
She was also able to take her first bath last night since Sunday and can you say yuck. She had so much dried blood in her hair and on her scalp - I still don't think I got it all out. She enjoyed playing in the water a bit though.

The swelling in her eyes is still too much for her to open then yet. We have tried applying ice packs but she won't do it while she is awake so we have been doing it the last day or so once she is asleep for about 10 minutes. It seems to help but the swelling returns and it hasn't been enough help for her to be able to open her eyes.

Despite it all, she is coping amazingly well. She has gotten brave enough that she is now walking around the house a bit on her own. She has learned to walk slow and put her hands out to feel for familiar things to guide her - she is very determined that this will not hold her back. Her strength and continued happiness during all this is mind blowing - I would be so frustrated by now. Not saying she doesn't get frustrated at times but its just for a bit that she will be fuss out of boredom and then she moves on.

Angel is still sleeping great at night. She has been sleeping with me since we've returned from Chicago and if she wakes at night she will feel for me before getting agitated. If she feels me then she just goes back to sleep, it's very cute. It's going on a week now of us sleeping together, hope she doesn't get too used to it, I think Daddy would like his spot back at some point in time.

4-Days after surgery

5-Days after surgery

Don't you love the outfit and hair!

Not sure if you can tell on this picture or not but she does have a pointed pucker on her forehead at the top of the incision - I'm guessing they will have to redo this area at some point.

Today! 6-Days post surgery

We serve an amazing GOD!

One drain out, two to go

Angel is doing well. The swelling around her eyes is going down a little more each day, hoping she will be able to see out of her right eye in the next day or two, I think her left eye will take a little longer. I'll update with some photos tomorrow so you can see the day to day progress.

She is coping very well with not being able to see and has not complained again about her eyes. She does get bored pretty quickly with things, so this morning we visited a good friend, J, who teaches preK out of her home a few days a week. J has lots of sensory activities. We spent about 2 hours over there. Angel got to play in J's sensory table that had little beads in it. She loved picking them up with her hands and dropping them, scooping them into a small bowl then dumping them, and finding the little various things hidden among them. Angel was not a big fan of finding the worm or spider - was cute to see her drop them as soon as you told her what she had. We also tossed around a balloon that had some small beads in it so Angel could hear where it was. She uses her sense of hearing very well. Angel also got to finger paint for the first time, I'm not sure if she liked painting as much as she just liked curling her hands to make the paint squish between her fingers. We had many great experiences this morning.

Prior to going over to J's house, we had to run to an auto body shop for an estimate. I neglected to mention in post about our Chicago journey that the friend who traveled with us got skimmed by another car on her way to pick us up from the hospital. It was not her fault, those Chicago drivers are just in too much of a hurry sometimes. Anyway, no major damage and no one was injured but my SUV does have some nice scratches and scuffs on the back, passenger side of the car. So we have to drop it off on Monday for repair in exchange for a rental for a few days. The gal who did the estimate was very kind and said she would advocate that I need a van or SUV as a rental. that a common car would not work with the 4 children I have to tote around.

Thanks for the continued prayers and support, we are very blessed.

Surgery - BIG Success

Surgery went well on Monday, though much longer than we had anticipated. The operating room was running behind schedule so we had to wait an extra hour. Finally at 10:45am she was wheeled back for surgery. Dr. B said it would take at least 3 hours. Four hours later, a hospital volunteer checked in on them and was told they expected it to be another 30 minutes. That 30 minutes turned into over an hour. Finally, at about 4pm, over 5 hours later, the doctor came to visit with us and explain how things went.

Due to the 3 expanders, which is something newer he tried, it took much longer than he originally anticipated. All the skin had to be laid into place before it could all be stitched. He is extremely pleased with how it all went. They were able to get about 95% of the Nevus removed. All that is left is the small portion just under her left eye, the very tip of her nose (which is a very light spot) and bit in her left eye brow. Amazing.

She is quite swollen, including her eyes which are swollen shut and will be for another 2 days or so. She is dealing with it quite well, overall. She threw one little fit on Monday evening, saying eyes, eyes and I did my best to tell her right now she needed to keep the closed but she would be able to open them again. Entertainer her isn't easy, nothing keeps her attention for long - I pray the swelling subsides soon. She is a trooper though.

So where do we go from here? Well due to the way they had to bring the forehead skin down and twist it (had to keep it connected in the corner of her eye and nose for blood flow) down for the nose, she has an extra skin fold or two over her right eye. Therefore, we will have to go back to Chicago in 3-4 weeks for an out patient surgery where they will remove the extra fold and put her eyebrow back in its proper place. This time will allow the skin placed on her nose to grow it's own blood supply. I was told this procedure would take about 90 minutes or so. We will hopefully know that date later this week.

After that, she will be allowed to heal till around the first of the year. They will then take a graft of skin from behind one of her ears and graft it to the area under her left eye. Not sure what else is planed, was a lot to comprehend in one day.

There were a few things that I didn't quite expect but there were a lot of unknowns going into it. I hadn't anticipated all of the eye swelling, though it makes sense. I was also not expecting that we would have to return in a few weeks for another procedure. So I know we will have more swelling then but at least it will only be one eye.

Well here are pictures of how she looks, it's quite amazing when you look at the before pictures.

Angel & mom after recovery

Angel all propped up with pillows, resting.

This was her cue that she wanted another bite of applesauce.

After we got home yesterday evening.

Suprise, Surgery is Monday, Not Thursday

So I took Angel in for her pre-op physical today and it's a good thing we did. For one, we discovered she has the beginning of an ear infection in her left ear and two, on the way home from the appointment I got a call from the hospital where she will be having surgery next week. The call wasn't unusual, they called before her first surgery for some pre-op information which is what they were calling and toclarified that she was scheduled for surgery on Monday- um, no, Thursday. She was right, I called the surgeons nurse and she was very apologetic and wasn't exactly sure when the date changed and how we weren't notified but the doc will be out on Thursday, so Monday it is.

So here I am in overdrive trying to re plan everything. I know it will all come together, I'm just more anxious now than I was.

So Angel and I, plus a good friend (if everything falls into place for her), will be leaving for Chicago on Sunday afternoon, about 48 hours from now.

Please keep Angel in your prayers Monday morning. She will go into surgery at 9:30am (Central Time) and they say it will take at least 3 hours. Thanks ahead of time for all your blessings.

Have a great weekend!

10 days till surgery...

I'm ready but I'm not and it'll be here before we know it.

Hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Labor Day!

Have a blessed and fabulous week.