Chelsea's Surgery

The last that I think we posted was that she was going to have a CT Scan. What the doctor found was a scalpal dermoid, which was deforming her skull, so it needed to be removed. She had her surgery this morning, and everything went well. It was exactly what the doctor had thought, and it was a pretty simple fix. She seemes to do pretty well, and we held it together as well (this could have been the toughest part of the day). Here's a summary of the day for those of you interested. Otherwise, just skip to the pictures. But be warned, as cute as she is, these pictures are not necessarily the most flattering.

We had to be at the hospital at 6 am this morning, and we actually arrived a little bit early. Amazing, I know, since neither Jacob or I are morning people, and have trouble getting up for 9 am church...Anyway, we had to wait a while to check in, but things moved pretty smoothly and quickly. We got her changed into the hospital gown, and she was doing pretty well for not having eaten since 11:30pm last night.

Her first (and perhaps only) "ouchie" was when they had to prick her finger for some blood. She didn't like it, and there was nothing we could do to console her. Between exhaustion, hunger, and then the poke, she was not a happy girl. From there we went to get her height and weight and answer health questions. (Side note...she was 18.4 lbs and screaming loud enough that we couldn't hear her height.) After that the anesthesiologist came in and met her and asked more questions, and told us what was going to happen. She seemed to like him more than the nurses...she didn't think he was trying to hurt her...which he wasn't, but he was going to make sure she didn't feel anything.

From there we went back into the waiting room to wait for the Life Specialist (or something like that), who was going to do a practice separation and let her play with the mask. Chelsea did fine with the separation (basically just walking into the other room with a stranger...kinda scary, I guess). Chelsea and the nurse brought us back some "funny hats" for me and Jacob to put on just so Chels could see them. She picked the raspberry Lipsmackers to go inside her mask. (They put it in there to make it smell good to help the kids...then before they know it, they are out.) They told us that when they took her away from us, everything was ready and she would be asleep within a couple of minutes. We gave her hugs and kisses, and they took her away. We headed to the waiting room.

The surgery was supposed to take about an hour, so we ended up falling asleep waiting. We hardly slept last night, then had to get up early, so we were exhausted. The doctor came out just after 9, letting us know how everything went. He said everything went fine, but he was worried about her soft spot closing up, because the bone had rough edges, or something like that. Anyway, the skull has three different layers, so he took a little bit of one of the layers and put it in the soft spot area (i.e. a bone graft) to stimulate the growth. He said it wasn't anything to worry about, he just wanted us to know that he had done it. We then found out that Chelsea would get to go home today.. We had been told that she was going to have to stay overnight. Then we got to go back to see her.

As soon as we started heading back to the recovery room, we heard her drying. She sounded so said...you could tell she was uncomfortable, exhausted, and had a sore throat from the breathing tube. After Daddy took her, she calmed down pretty quick. She hated the blood pressure cuff, and didn't like being hooked up to everything. We went into the second recovery room, and from there we left within about 30-45 minutes. We had tried to feed her, but her sore throat stopped her from drinking...anything. She fell asleep and slept until about 3:00, and is much happier now. She's crawlin' around like crazy, still looks tired, but is being surprisingly pleasant for having had surgery this morning. She has to keep the band-aid on until Friday, and she gets her stitches out in 2 weeks. Overall, the surgery was a success (as far as we can tell) and we are excited for everything to heal up! She's gonna be cuter than ever :)! Here are some pictures from today:

This picture is actually from the other day, but I had to put at least one super cute picture of her!

This was right after we got her dressed. Ignore me, just look at her. She's not quite sure what's going on, so she's still pretty happy.

This was us in the "funny hats." I think it's a pretty good picture, actually! This was just minutes before they took her back.

They brought out a little doctor kit for her to play with. Raffe (her giraffe) is taking a listen to her ticker :).

I just think this picture is cute :)

Recovery. They only had to take off just a little bit of her hair, which we were able to bring home with us. I'm thinking of keeping this hairdo for everyday use...what do you think? I'll admit, I didn't realize she had this much hair! The thing on her arm is a splint to keep her from moving it because of the iv. They couldn't get it in the top of her hand, so it's underneath her wrist.

Back at home, having a bottle, and just relaxing. My friend Jessica brought her that Minnie and the books..thanks Jess! Like I said, she's pretty pleasant considering she just had surgery!

Overall everything went well. Thanks everyone for your prayers and thoughts for our family. We appreciate them and are glad that it's over and can't wait for her to heal up! Then, maybe, just maybe, I can put a bow on her head and people will stop calling her a he...maybe!