Surgery Day

Ethan's first major surgery to fix the Cranialfacial Microsomia was today (6/3/10). The surgery went well and there were no surprises. Total time was about 2 hours. On the docket for today:

Fix the macrostomia (wide mouth)

Fix the underlying muscles around the lip (part of the macrostomia repair)

Excise the ear tags

Fix/remove the dimple on the side of his face near the macrostomia

Clip his frenulum (to enable more range of motion for his tongue)

Clean out his ears

Examine his ears for fluid buildup/retention

Everything but the dimple removal was completed successfully. The dimple was originally thought to be the result of the abnormal musculature around the lip. It turns out it is "thin skin" as the doctor put it. So removal of the dimple would entail cutting it out and basically replacing the dimple with a scar - so the doctor decided to leave it alone.

Otherwise everything went well and as planned. Stitches at the site of the surgery where the macrostomia was will be removed next week. They will send us home with arm restraints (so he can't pull/yank on his stitches) as well as pain medications and creams/topicals to help with healing at the various surgical sites to minimize scarring.

The ENT surgeon did note that there was in fact fluid in the ears and tubes will most likely be needed. The procedure is a simple one and apparently can be done in about 15 minutes so if it is decided that we should procede along these lines, the tube insertion will most likely be appended to his eye surgery (to fix the dermoid). This surgery will probably be in the Sept./Oct. timeframe. The fluid in his ears will impact his hearing so I am fairly certain this is the course of action that will be taken.

If all goes well and according to plan (and so far it has), Ethan will be home sometime tomorrow. Dina is staying at Children's overnight with Ethan while I will stay home with Jonathan. (If anyone is wondering, Jonathan stayed with Dina's mom all day - a big thank you there!).

One interesting thing to note: it took the surgical team over 20 minutes to get the IV into Ethan because he's so chubby (baby fat). Apparently this is common: from between 9 months to 18 months, it is the hardest time to get an IV into a human being because of all the baby fat.

In the following pictures, if you notice that Ethan looks bigger overall post surgery, it is not your imagination. They pumped a lot of fluids into him during surgery to make sure he kept hydrated/electrolytes in balance.

Ethan and his Most-Absolutely-Most-Favoritest-Person-In-The-Whole-Wide-World (aka mommy) - pre surgery.

Ethan and mommy - post surgery.

Ethan post surgery. You can clearly see the stitches and surgical sites. The site on the side of his mouth appears large but is actually about right when you stop to think about it: 1/2 of that is where the mouth used to extend to, the other half accounts for where they did the repair to the muscles around the lip. And if you are wondering, the doctor gave the OK for binky immediately after surgery.

Ethan's diaper as it came back from surgery with him (they retain it to weigh it to monitor fluid intake/retention). As I've always suspected - used diapers are a dangerous form of biological warfare.

- bob