Surgery Primer - Skip if you're Squeamish
DISCLAIMER - Skip this post if you're squeamish. I realized not everyone knows exactly what Isaiah is having done so I thought I'd use this post to describe it quickly and its a bit graphic.
Isaiah is going to have what they call an Anterior Cranial Vault with a number of other small procedures around his nose and eyes. Essentially they are going to reopen the incision scar Isaiah has from ear to ear from his previous surgeries and rearrange the bones in the front of his skull to give the frontal lobe of his brain more room to grow. It's a bit of a puzzle like process where they cut out certain areas and put them back in a different place and the neurosurgeon helps to stimulate the brain to grow in the direction of the area they are opening up. In order to do this they stitch his eyelids shut and sort of peel the skin of his face down. While open he'll get some bone grafts at the bridge of his nose to bring it out further and also have the corners of his eye sockets brought upward slightly to counter the drooping eyes that occur with Apert kiddos as they grow. The stitches on the eye lids help everything go back together a little easier in the end and also help with keeping things in place as his head swells up during the healing process, but it also means he'll essentially be blinded for up to a week until the sutures dissolve.
The height of his swelling should be sometime Saturday afternoon or evening. The amount of fluid up there is a bit crazy. His last surgery his head nearly doubled in size and you could audibly hear the fluid sloshing around when we moved him or he changed his position. The best thing we can compare it to is like the sound of a waterbed when you first lay in it. Its gross but an amazing example of how God designed our bodies to protect and heal themselves. The fluid creates a cushion of sorts to protect the brain and bones as they heal. As crazy as it sounds, if all goes well, we should be discharged from the hospital as soon as Sunday afternoon and we'll be on our way back home to Marietta the next day.
Isaiah is going to have what they call an Anterior Cranial Vault with a number of other small procedures around his nose and eyes. Essentially they are going to reopen the incision scar Isaiah has from ear to ear from his previous surgeries and rearrange the bones in the front of his skull to give the frontal lobe of his brain more room to grow. It's a bit of a puzzle like process where they cut out certain areas and put them back in a different place and the neurosurgeon helps to stimulate the brain to grow in the direction of the area they are opening up. In order to do this they stitch his eyelids shut and sort of peel the skin of his face down. While open he'll get some bone grafts at the bridge of his nose to bring it out further and also have the corners of his eye sockets brought upward slightly to counter the drooping eyes that occur with Apert kiddos as they grow. The stitches on the eye lids help everything go back together a little easier in the end and also help with keeping things in place as his head swells up during the healing process, but it also means he'll essentially be blinded for up to a week until the sutures dissolve.
The height of his swelling should be sometime Saturday afternoon or evening. The amount of fluid up there is a bit crazy. His last surgery his head nearly doubled in size and you could audibly hear the fluid sloshing around when we moved him or he changed his position. The best thing we can compare it to is like the sound of a waterbed when you first lay in it. Its gross but an amazing example of how God designed our bodies to protect and heal themselves. The fluid creates a cushion of sorts to protect the brain and bones as they heal. As crazy as it sounds, if all goes well, we should be discharged from the hospital as soon as Sunday afternoon and we'll be on our way back home to Marietta the next day.
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