What is the Lefort III aka midface advancement surgery. This surgery will bring her entire midface forward in one piece from her top jaw to just above her cheekbones. They will have to cut along her previous cranial surgery scar to open her up and then they cut her bone just below her eye sockets down to her upper jaw and along the ridge of her nose so that the midface will be just free floating. (see picture below) Then they attach the RED/halo (rigid external distraction device) with 8-10 screws. They made a splint that goes in her upper palate like an expander that attaches to the halo with wires. This allows us to turn the screws 2-3 times a day and it pulls her midface forward, without pain. We will be turning the screws for approximetely 30 days to move her midface forward around 3 cm. Once we are done turning she will still have to wear the halo for around 7-8 more weeks so that the bone can grow and fill in that area. She will then have another surgery to remove the halo.
The most important aspects of this surgery are that it will align her upper and lower jaws, improve her speech, and open up her airway, allowing her to breath better and it gives her the best chance of getting off of her CPAP at night. Even if she needs to have a CPAP after, hopefully it will be at a much lower pressure. It also will "normalize" her appearance. This is probably the hardest aspect of this surgery to us. This is the face we all love and her facial structure changes so much with this surgery, she is going to look different and it's a drastic change and just really hard to prepare yourself for.
Surgery is scheduled for June 17th. I find it fitting that her 17th and biggest surgery is on the 17th. She will be in the hospital 3-5 days. She will be in the PICU for at least one night and she will have a feeding tube while in the hospital, although some do go home with a feeding tube. It all depends on how well they do with eating post-op. She will be on soft foods until after the removal. We will start distracting around day 5 post-op.
This is the surgery we all dread as parents of an Apert kiddo, but the benefits outweigh the negatives. We will get through this and soon be on the other side. We have made new shirts to support Braylee through this surgery. It really makes her day when her friends talk about them getting one and seeing people wearing them. So, if you would like to help lift up her spirits you can purchase a shirt at
www.bonfire.com/support-for-braylee/
Thank you all for supporting our girl!
