The Last Fill

Today was the last fill of round two. It was actually bittersweet. I wish we could have four more fills but I am also glad that we don't have to worry about "fill" day until next time.

Aiden did fantastic today. I wasn't expecting him to because he was less than thrilled to fill up his bubbles. He was, however, thrilled at getting a sucker, especially since it was one with a little lighting mcqueen toy at the top. To say this kid is obsessed with cars is an understatement. He even watched this new little show we found on Netflix that is all about cars.

I did experience a mishap today and actually it made me laugh. When I went to do the first bubble, everything was going fine. The needle was in, I could feel the port and the saline seemed to be going in. Well, out of nowhere the syringe comes flying off the needle and squirts Michael right in the face. We were both silent for a second but moved on to get new supplies since those were now not sanitized.  I have never had that happen before and the only thing I can think of it that I didn't have the syringe completely attached to the needle and it just came loose. The best part was Aiden didn't even flinch and didn't care that I had to poke him again. If that would have happened last time, I would have freaked out but it was no big deal and no reason to panic. So, instead, we laughed it off.

All of the other bubbles went perfect. No tears and no flinching one bit. Aiden even looked at the needle in his arm and clapped and said "Blue" because the butterfly part of the needle is that color. We ended the last fill with a high five and that couldn't have made me any happier. I am no medical professional but I can easily do this and actually find it easier in the comfort of our own home.

I did not put a whole lot in today but I am pleased with the numbers. He now has 290 in the upper chest, 360 in the lower chest and 220 in the back. Considering we are moving up surgery and missed a week, we are not that far off from the goals of 350, 500 and 250. I know this is going to be great results! I am relieved that we are going early so that we don't encounter any more issues as we are starting to see some drainage again from the incisions.

Take a look at what the final fill brought us to....

Upper chest at 290cc

Back at 220cc

Lower chest at 360cc and quite the view of all three! 

We will head to Chicago on Sunday and prepare for surgery on the 23rd!

The Year of Changing Dates....

There have been a lot of unexpected things happen to our little family in 2012 so I shouldn't be surprised by my news that I have to share but somehow I still am...just a little. So, here I am to report that our surgery date of November 12th to remove Aiden's bubbles has been moved to October 23rd. You are probably just as surprised as I was since everything has been going so well. So, let me catch you up to speed. 

A few days after we did fill #5, I noticed some kind of fluid that was leaking out from his upper chest incison. It wasn't a whole lot but because it was coming from the expander that was bruised from surgery, I was slightly concerned that we were heading into a problem. I emailed Dr. Bauer a picture and he said that we would need to watch it. Then a few days later, the lower chest incision also had a spot that was leaking out fluid so I emailed Dr. Bauer again. Keep in mind that the expanders looked good still and it didn't seem like the fluid was increasing. So in my mind, I was thinking that Dr. Bauer would put him on an antibiotic or something to keep the expanders healthy. Well I thought wrong! He said that he thought we should move up surgery. WHAT???????? I didn't see that one coming for one second since we weren't battling a huge complication with a massive infection. And not to mention that we went very quickly from "we need to watch it" to "lets move up surgery." 

He further explained that he didn't want something bad to develop out of this and then have to lose the good skin that we already have so far. He also said that he had a couple of meetings this month where he would be out of town and he didn't want an emergency to occur and then not have him be there to do the surgery. I most certainly didn't want any of those things to happen so we agreed that it was best to move up surgery. 

Was I horribly upset by this news? Not really because Dr. Bauer knows best and I know that the results will be amazing. I would hate to have something happen and not nearly get the results we could have if we left the surgery the same. Was I disappointed? Absolutely! We were doing so well and his bubbles were on track to go over our goals on at least two of the bubbles so it is hard to think about where we could have gotten. I have learned through my own experiences and my friends experiences, that we can not think about the "what if's". With expansion, we don't always know what will happen so we learn to roll with the punches. 

The one thing that made me nervous was when Dr. Bauer was going to be able to schedule us in for surgery. We had so many plans for October with the major thing being a Birthday Bash with two of his little buddies who have birthdays very close to each other. The first date that Kristi gave me (Dr. Bauer's wonderful assistant) was October 8th which would have required us to leave in three days. Although we fly southwest and are able to easily change our flight, it would have cost us a lot of money to change it with such short notice so that wasn't really an option for us and since it wasn't an emergency, Dr. Bauer agreed that it would have been too difficult to get there. So, we went with the next available date which was October 23rd. Of course this date had to directly affect the party and I felt horrible about it but it was best for Aiden and that is our number one priority. Luckily, we were able to move the birthday party up one week and everything worked out. It still sucks that we have to go through this and I have been really tired of switching dates around but 2013 will be a new year and hopefully with it will come better luck with our surgery dates. 

After we had the new date scheduled. I asked Dr. Bauer how we should proceed with the fills and he told us to wait a few days and then let him know how the incisions look. Luckily, after a few days, the fluid seemed to stop leaking out and the incisions were not that irritated so he said we could proceed conservatively. If anything else was to happen with the incisions then he told us to stop. I was happy to be able to do a fill but also nervous because I don't want anything else to happen with them. So I waited a few more days before finally doing one. 

I am so happy to report that Aiden was awesome during this fill. I wish I would have thought to video tape it. He did not flinch or cry one time and that is a huge reassurance to me that doing these fills aren't painful for him but that he is just scared. He was such a big boy that he even watched me fill up his bubbles and helped me check his skin to see if we could fill them up some more. The little car toy that we gave him also helped a lot! He made his beep beep noises along the way and it was over and done with so quickly that I couldn't believe it. I can't wait to tell him one day what a brave little boy he is. It makes me cry just thinking about. He truly is my little superhero. 

With caution on my mind, I filled 20cc in his back expander, and 30cc in his two front ones. Our totals are now 195cc in back, 340cc in lower chest and 260cc in upper chest. We actually do have some great numbers and are pretty close to our goals so that I am really happy about. I really hope to get in one more fill next week! And then off to the Windy city we go after a fun Halloween Birthday Bash that is going to be blast! I can't wait to see the results from this round and share them with you all! 

Here are his latest bubbles...