Commencing Expansion

Today is the first expansion procedure.  A little nervous.  It has been explained to us that saline solution will be injected via the ports under C's skin into the expansion balloons.  The doctor will know when to stop by the discomfort he shows.  The discomfort is a necessary part of the process and is momentary.

After fill #1

The injection went better than anticipated. I had to hold C immobilized cradled against my chest.  The doctor used two larger syringes to fill both at the same time.  C cried when the needles went in, screamed when he felt pressure.  Injection stopped, the needles came out, C sat up and was done crying in about 3 seconds.  We waited a few minutes to observe and make sure everything would be okay.  To C it was almost like nothing had happened.  They got in 10 cubic centimeters in the front and about 20 in back.  We'll be back in 2 weeks.  

After Surgery #1

Recovery and pain management lasted about 2 days.  After day two at home he was totally off Tylenol.  The new challenge was that he was teething at the same time, so he had discomfort there which made it tough to grasp why he would be crying.  We tried to ditch the Tylenol with codeine as soon as possible and stick with ibuprofen or or low dose Tylenol.

Full healing of the stitches took about 3 weeks and there was bruising that set in lasting about 4 days after the surgery.

Day 1 after surgery in hospital

Day 2 

Day 3

Day 4

Day 6

Day 16

The swelling has gone down enough by day 16 that you can start seeing the insertion ports that look like two quarter sized bumps under the mole.  The balloon expanders are back and above his ear and in his forehead straight above his nose in the day 16 picture.  The balloons are under the skin and will be expanded to increase non-mole skin surface area.