3 weeks post op

So now we are three weeks post op and Charlie is healing well. His incisions are healing well with no signs of infection. He does have one droopy eye which will get corrected after the next round. He also has a big lump over his left eye which seems to be bone that has built up around the expander that was there. I'm hoping he can shave that down at the next surgery. The doctor thinks he can get the rest of the nevus with just one expander. We hope to start that in 4-5 months.

The only snafu we had was last Wednesday (June 4) Charlie fell while dancing and hit his head on the corner of our dresser. We ended up in the ER and he needed 4 staples!

The big reveal!! (May 18, 2014)

On Monday morning we couldn't wait to get to UCSF to see the results of the surgery. Up until this point we didn't know what it looked like under those bandages. We dropped Lily at school and then Kelly, Nana, Charlie and I headed to Dr. Hoffman's office. Once he removed the bandages we were amazed. It was weird to see him with his shaved head and he had gotten a lot of the nevus (probably about 2/3). We also got the horrible drain out which had been bothersome and hard to sleep with (I was so paranoid he would get it wrapped around his neck while he slept). Afterward we grabbed a quick lunch at Panda, stopped at our favorite rooftop garden for some pics and then headed home.

We're home! (May 17, 2014)

We were greeted by Gramma Berta and Lily with a clean house and a home cooked meal being prepared. When we got home Charlie was hungry but feelin pretty good overall. He got right to playing with his toys.

After his favorite Mac-n-Cheese and lemonade we headed upstairs for a nap. Charlie slept for 3-4 hours while mommy took Lily to her dance pictures.

That night he actually slept pretty well. I kept him in bed with me. He woke up for a few hours from about 4-6am but I just put on Thomas while I dozed. Then he went back to sleep until about 9am. When we got up he was happy, eating well and feeling pretty good. We gave him Tylenol but no other pain meds. He was having diarrhea a bit but I think that was his system just cleaning itself out after the surgery. On Sunday Gramma Berta had to leave but Auntie Leslie and her family came to visit. We went to the park and they made us a nice dinner.

About half way through the day on Sunday Charlie started to pull apart his bandages so we had to Gorilla tape it to keep it on. When Lily went for her swim evaluation she was excited because they both looked like they were wearing swim caps :)

He's out of surgery!

It had been about 6 hours since he went back so we were very excited and anxious to see him. Because it was so late we had to go to the adult post-op to see him. His head was bandaged and a drain was coming out the back. He had a nasty black eye and his whole face was swollen. I immediately took him in my arms and started nursing him. He seemed to be in some pain so they were giving him morphine. I was having a hard time because I was so hot and holding him was making me increasingly sweaty and uncomfortable. 

Finally around 9pm it was time to head to our room on the pediatrics floor. Initially we were put in a room with another older gal. She had a room full of visitors and the tv blaring. We were quickly distracted though because the nurse was very concerned about the seal barky sounds of his breathing (this happened last time after surgery and landed us in the ER so I was happy to be in the hospital this time). Anesthesia and the plastic surgery team were called to make sure everything was fine. We knew that his airway was being reactive to the intubation tube and this was causing the sound. They gave him another dose of Decadron (a steriod to open up the airway).  He had one dose in the operating room to help prevent this from happening because we knew it happened last time but he needed more.  Once we were assured he was fine we settled in for the night. I then requested having a private room. I knew Charlie would be crying in the night and I also knew we needed to try and sleep whenever we could so having a nice quiet room was critical for us. They said their private rooms are for infectious patients. But they did have a shared room that didn't have anyone else in it yet. We knew that someone could be admitted throughout the night but we were willing to take our chances.

Charlie slept most comfortably propped up in the bed. For the rest of the night he pretty much slept and woke every 10-15 min where we could just let him know we were there and pat him gently and he would settle back down. He also liked having his "b" in his mouth that night. It was hard to see him in pain and so uncomfortable. We gave him apple juice throughout the night and he even ate some applesauce, which he then threw up because the were trying to force him to take Tylenol. The Tylenol in the hospital is not sweet like the stuff you buy at the store so he wouldn't take it. Kelly had to leave in the morning and go to Safeway to buy Tylenol which then had to be approved by the hospital pharmacist and then a doc (now we know to bring our own Tylenol).

After a restless night I was worried for the next day. But amazingly around 7am, Charlie sat up and seemed like himself again! He wanted to eat and play ball. He was smiling, talking and being his normal self. It was amazing. He ate two whole pancakes, took and quick nap and we were itching to be discharged. By 10:30am he had another dose of antibiotics, Decadron, his IV removed and we were out of there!!