Dancing queen

Sophie at. A birthday party

On the way home

We just got discharged. Whoop, whoop. I hope we r home by dinnertime.

Sophie is doing well, and hasn't stopped eating for the last 3 hours. Here's to a speedy recovery, bambina!

Happy birthday mommy

The kitchen at the hospital was nice enough to bring Heather a cake for her birthday, but Sophie got to it first.

A birthday surprise!

Tomorrow is my birthday and I was pretty bummed to be spending it in hospital for the second year in a row. We had no idea what we were in for when we got here this morning...

So imagine my surprise when the doctor told me in the post surgical consult that he was able to remove the nevus and take the expanders out.

I was dumbstruck, and said,'and you installed new ones?'. To which he answered, 'no, they are out.'

I almost jumped accross the table and grabbed his hands and said at least three times, 'you mean it is gone? The whole nevus is gone? And there aren't anymore expanders right now?' He must have thought I was daft!

What a milestone. This wasn't even in the realm of options. We didn't expect to get here until at least early next year. We don't expect any more surgeries for about a year.

This is truly a wonderful surprise. We are staying @ the hospital tonight, and hoping for a speedy recovery, and a trip home tomorrow so we can celebrate.

Honestly, this outcome had to have been influenced by all the prayers, good thoughts, reiki and positive love coming from you all. THANK YOU!

She is in

What a day, and we are just getting started! Surgery is starting late, very late. I asked the doctor if he needed to eat something to power up for bambina's procedure. After talking to anesthesia, today's procedure is a lot more serious than I realized. Hopefully, in the next hour we will know what direction they are taking this in. If the skin is strong enough, it will be longer to remove some of the nevis. If not, they will swap the faulty expanders and we will be out. Either way, it looks like we are going to be staying overnight.

Updates as we have them.

Here we go again

I am starting to feel like I should get a job as a trucker running something between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Honestly, I should be getting paid for the amount of time I spend on the turnpike. That, there is no way to mitigate my carbon footprint right now.

Anyway, sophie goes in for surgery @ 1130 tomorrow am. We are hoping that we can come home tomorrow. We have no idea what we are in for, it could be an expander removal, an excision, a singal or dual implantation, perhaps blood transfusions. Ugh.

So all of the females in the family are on the road, hoping for an easy in and out and to not loose the options of expanders at this time or in the future.

Poor kid, she is wise to this game. I am throwing a pity party).

Updates forthcoming.

Ballerina

The Update

As has been said here. Sophie has been having issues with this round of expanders. After having her wear a compression bandage all week (with a sock in it for just a little bit of extra pressure) to try to correct her issues. We're having surgery on Tuesday. They are planning on removing the top expander, fixing the cheek expander, and putting in a smaller on in the forehead. The doctor thinks he may be able to get all of the nevus in the hair growing area of her scalp, so this hopefully isn't a total loss, and we'll just have to correct her hairline.

Here's to hoping all goes smooth on Tuesday.

Playing with my phone

Got a new camera app for my phone so I took a cute picture with it.

thanks everyone

for all of the prayer and good wishes. We are in a waiting week to see if Sophie can heal up enough to expand. Her cheek expander failed, so replacing that will depend on the ability of the scalp to withstand stretching. Either way we are looking at surgery in the near future.

She is in good spirits and energy despite this, which is fab. She is more and more awareness of this whole mess and it has become part of her daily consciousness, due to her high IQ :)

We go back Friday and will have a gameplan then. We will attempt to get back to the cute pictures and fun stuff sooner rather than later! We have some good ones of her from Labor day weekend we'll get up when we get a minute.

Dog time

Sophie is login on the dog today

Fair fun