Jackson's surgery: Post-surgery

  So after the surgery, Jackson was asleep for most of the first day.  Joyce stayed with him in the hospital overnight and was very impressed with most of the nursing staff at Sacred Heart.  His head was wrapped like a mummy and he had a tiny drain tube coming out the top of his head...

3 Hours post-surgery

 ...that tube of red stuff is the drain contents.  He looks a bit pale...

18 Hours post-surgery

   Hello!  Now he's thinking, 'what the hell happened?!'.  He was still a little sedated with morphine for the pain, but was looking a lot less pale after a transfusion from mommas blood.  All that direct-donation crap with the blood bank wasn't for nothing!!!  Yay!

24 Hours post-surgery

   The drain's out, mummy-wrap is gone and you can see the doctor's handiwork.  I have to say, it's really hard seeing your little boy like this...

2 days post-surgery: Discharge!!!

  Boy is it nice having everybody home again!  The night JJ came out of surgery it started dumping buckets of snow.  And I swear as soon as some of these people see a snowflake it turns into student driving all over again!  I mean, splitting lanes on the interstate going 30 mph!  Anyway...here are some CT scans of post-surgery...

Huge hole-top of head

  I know...holy crap what a big hole!  At this point I really started wishing I asked for the bone he cut out of his head.  Just think how cool that would have been for show-and-tell!!!!  That thing going over the skull is  the drain tube.

Barrel stave cuts on right side of head.

Back View

Barrel stave cuts on left side of head..and patchy holes.

  It's truly amazing what doctors can do these days and it's even more amazing how tough little kids are.  Jackson is smiling at mom and dad already and he is on a minimal dose of ibuprofen.  I will also say that it is extremely difficult to see kids go through things like this, especially your own.  I hope this is the end of it!
  So he gets fitted with a forming helmet on Friday and he gets to sport that for six months.  With any luck, he won't have to go in for surgery again and the helmet will shape his head a little better.  Until then, it is really weird to touch the 'hole' in the top of his head since it is really just like touching his brain.  I can't wait for him to rock the helmet so we can get that huge soft spot covered up!

Jackson's craniosectomy...or something like that...it begins: 1-17-2011

  About two months ago, we noticed that Jackson's head was a little 'weird-lookin'...it seemed that it wasn't rounding out.  At his first checkup we brought it to the doc's attention...he replied 'Well, everybody has differently-shaped heads...' ...I almost made HIS head a different shape with that remark.  This wasn't my first time to the rodeo...out little girl has a good head and I know an 'alien-type' head when I see it.  We agreed to wait until the next check-up (a week later) to see if it rounded out any more.  No dice...so then the doc did some research and told us about craniosynostosis.  This is when I found out that a baby's skull consists of several plates that are not attached (or 'fused') until they are 6-9 months old.
  Fast forward a couple weeks...after a CT-scan and a visit to the pediatric surgeon we found out that two of the sutures (gap between the plates) had prematurely fused together.  One suture is on the top of the head (sgattital) and one is on the right side of the back of his head (lambdal). The CT-scan is shown below...

1 Month Old...Top suture and left rear suture is completely fused

  On a side-note...this picture is a screen shot taken from the disk they gave us when we asked for copies of the scan.  It is totally BA!  What you are actually seeing are 3-D images that I was able to rotate so you can see the right parts of the scull.  Coming from someone that works with 3-D models all day, this was very bitchin'...okay...now on to the rest-o-the story...
  The solution is to cut a 2-inch strip of bone where the sagittal suture should be, and a 1/2-inch strip where the lambdal suture should be.  After a week, he will get a forming helmet that will help hold his head in the proper shape while the sutures grow together.  Six months later he loses the helmet and hopefully leads a 'normal' life.
  So, here we are in the hospital now...been here for almost three hours and our little guy is hungry as hell.  Mom is doing a swell job of keeping him happy but I know that won't last.  We're waiting because there's a bit of an issue with the blood...which is another story altogether.  But we obviously have time, so I'll give you the skinny on the deal.
  The surgeon requires there be six pediatric units of blood on hand if they nick an artery or need it for some other reason during or after the surgery.  They gave us the option of using blood from the blood bank or doing a 'direct-donation'.  I hate getting stuck, let alone drained of my essential juices...but this appealed to Joyce - motherly instinct I think.  Little did we know this would be such a big deal.  Here are the steps they stated this all had to happen in:
1) Donate your blood at the blood bank to make six
2) Take baby to get his/her blood drawn to find baby's blood type (labs)
3) If your blood type matches, they'll make the units of blood and ready it for surgery.
  Screwed up, huh?  So we don't even know what his blood type is and they need blood from us.  Wow.  WTH?  I thought it would go something like this:
1) Take baby to labs to find his blood type
2) If parent has matching blood type, do a direct donation
3) Blood would be ready for surgery
  When Joyce went to the blood bank with all her forms (there were quite a few!), she handed them to the secretary there...and the secretary was like 'Why do you want to do this?'.  Huh?  Did she really ask that?  This is when they told her that the doctor's office had provided us an 'old form' that didn't have a signature - only a doctor's stamp.  Oh yeah, and this was after she arranged a babysitter for Claire and an hour in the blood bank office...and she didn't even get blood drawn!  This is when it became clear that they don't really like people doing direct-donation, and they certainly don't make it easy!  Anyway, we got that all figured out...The doctor's office rushed in proper info to the blood bank and I watched Claire the next day so Joyce could get sucked.
  But now we're waiting...for blood!  They don't have the blood here and it will probably be another hour (or two) before we're able to start surgery.  What a pain in the ass.  Turns out Joyce is O+ (she thinks) and he's A+ ...this means nothing to me, except my boy be exceptional!!!!  Who knows what Joyce is...jk!
  Here's a pic of Action-Jackson in his samurai suit ready for his big day...