Braylee did great during surgery. Her surgeon is really pleased on how things went. He showed us pictures of mid surgery and let me tell you, seeing your child's brain and inside of the skull is very tough thing to do but it was also very informing, especially when you are a visual person. So what he ended up doing was more of a cranial vault advancement. So they basically cut the front part of her skull off in one big piece and then placed it on top of her brow, moving the forehead forward. Doing this he didn't have enough bone to fill in that gap on the top of the back of her head, so she has a gap going across her whole head now. He anticipates this to fill in but if it doesn't he will fix that when he does the mid-face. Important thing is he moved her forehead forward and got all of her holes filled with her bone so that he can safely attach the Halo device for her mid-face surgery. He also put some bone on the top of her nose to help fill that out more. She did have some indents on her dura (the membrane covering her brain) so this means she had some pressure on her brain, that none of the CT's that we had done showed. Something that I was kind of afraid of after hearing multiple stories of kids having pressure but showing no signs and not showing up on a CT. They only found it during surgery. So there is that, but she should have plenty of room in there for her brain, for now.
She is in the pediatric ICU tonight and will hopefully get moved to the pediatric floor tomorrow. She has only woke up for a couple minutes and then gone back to sleep. Hoping she can just keep on sleeping through the night. She will most likely swell more tonight and tomorrow and then it will start to decline.
The change is huge!! It's really hard to put into words.... From the brow down she still looks like the same ole Braylee but when you add in her new forehead, it puts a little twist on it.
Getting all of the Braylee's Battalion shirt pictures today has really brightened our day!! Can't wait to show her all of them!!
Thank you for all of the prayers and happy thoughts. Keep them going as she's still not totally out of the woods until we see what her swelling does but she's definitely moving in the right direction.
Grateful for a successful surgery! Hang in there and get some rest yourself!
ReplyDeleteThank You Lord for watching over Braylee throughout her surgery and for her surgeon & surgical team. We lift this sweet little girl and her family up to you in prayer to surround them in Your love, strength, and peace throughout Braylee’s journey. We ask that You help her to heal without any complications and we thank You for answering our prayers. In Jesus name, Amen.
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