Surgery Update
As many of you know, we have been preparing for another round of surgery. This preparation has been complicated by a persistent, productive cough that our darling daughter has had for 3+ weeks. Also, her surgeon requested a CT scan last week and our darling daughter… let’s just say that she did not like this idea. Be this as it may, we received word this morning that we are going ahead with the plan for surgery this Wednesday. We have one more check with her pediatrician tomorrow afternoon, but things are looking promising.
This surgery is one that we never heard of in the previous discussions about our darling daughter’s progression of care. They are going to use the same incision that they used last time and will be placing two distractors (one on the right and one on the left) near the back of her skull. What the distractors do is allow for a cut that they will make in her skull to be widened. These devices will come with a screwdriver that my beloved bride or I will have to turn once, maybe twice a day to make this happen. We are doing this because our daughter needs more space for her brain to grow, and to allow for a much more permanent result for the next surgery (December/January). We have been told that her recovery will be much like the procedure that they performed in December (posterior cranio vault remodeling (cvr)) so she will be in the hospital in the PICU for a few days.
As my beloved bride in 5 weeks away from our due date for our soon-to-be-son, she will be staying the nights with a dear friend that only lives minuets from the hospital, and coming in during the day. I will be staying with our darling daughter as she recovers the entire time. My dad is coming in, which is awesome, and my step-mom really wishes that she could be here (as do all of us).
So, I will be spending the day trying to get as much work as I can completed, and going frantic with the thoughts of what is before us. I know that my beloved bride and I have our own fears about all that is going on, but it my prayer that Zoey recovers well, and we can continue to be her never-ending source of love, patience, strength, compassion and caring that she will need. After all, for the last 18 months, she has been that never-ending source for us. I ask again, as I did for the last one, for your thoughts, prayers, well wishes, candles, whatever you may do for and over my darling daughter, and the doctors preforming her surgery. I will be doing my best to post updates; we will be at the hospital around 6am EST Wednesday.
I AM A CRANIO DAD, I am scared out of my mind, and this never gets any easier.