We Are Still Here!

Wow, it's been a while, but we are still here.  Life has been going 90 miles an hour, and we are hanging on tight.  I realized that I never posted any updates from Sophie's last round of expansion. This was a round like no other, and we hope we never have one like it again!

Things started out pretty normal, and we went through our usual routine of drain removal and then the fill process.  The fill process.  Well, this time the fills were much different.  In the past, Bo and I have done them at home with the help of EMLA cream.  Now that Sophie is older and very aware of all that we are doing, she was having no part of us doing the fills at home.  Thankfully, we met Dr. Beals and his group at USA Children's and Women's hospital after Sophie's last surgery, so they assisted us with the fills.  It was pretty intense during that 30 minutes of fills, but as soon as we were done, we would go do something fun, like play at the Splash Pad.  This was a great distraction for Sophie and the moving around really helped Sophie get comfortable quickly. 

 

A few weeks into our fills, Sophie started complaining that her side was hurting.  We watched closely, shared pictures with Dr. Bauer, stayed in contact with the pediatrician in case we needed to make a mad dash to the doctors office.  Well, we soon found ourselves in the ER of USA Children's and Women's hospital with a case of cellulitis on the left expander and port.  It doesn't look too bad in the pictures, but there was a lot of swelling and fever, and it was very painful for Sophie.

 

 

Thankfully, they were able to get Sophie on IV antibiotics right away, and we were able to save the expander.  Our hospital stay lasted around 4 days, but being in the hospital that my sister works in made the stay a whole lot easier as did the visits from family!

Fast forward to the July, and we are ready for the expanders to be removed.  We had an uneventful trip to Chicago.  My sister, Brenda, went with us this time.  We did some sightseeing in the city, and rode the train.  The weather was great! 

 

Sophie's surgery went well, and Dr. Bauer was able to remove a good portion of the nevus.  Below is a collage of the before and after photos of Sophie's back and a single picture of the front.  I don't have a good before pic of the front, but trust me, a lot of progress was made.

 

After we got home, Sophie developed an infection in the incision.  With the help of Dr. Bauer and Dr. Beals and his group, we were able to get it under control pretty quickly.  Whew!  This was a tough round, and we are very thankful that we made the decision early on that we would not do more surgeries this year.  We all needed a good break!