We are at Children’s Hospital today for Isaac’s surgery.  He is having his posterior distractors removed and a frontal/orbital advancement to correct his bilateral coronal craniostynosis.  Whew! So, what exactly does that mean?  Well, they will first remove the hardware in his head that was placed to do his posterior distraction.  They will then cut and remove his frontal bone to reshape it and create a brow bone for eye protection.  They will adjust his eyes a little if possible.  Finally, they will hold the work together with hardware that is absorbable.  It may take a year to eighteen months for his body to fully absorb them.

This is kind of bittersweet, as Isaac’s look will change with this surgery.  I took pictures of him yesterday, to have before pictures!  This boy is the highlight of our day, he is so content to play on the floor and roll around.  He smiles and chuckles at nothing in particular (he must find his thoughts comical), he is quite ticklish in his legs, and he loves to laugh for Zane.  Isaac is Amazing!!

Isaac was supposed to go back for surgery at 11:30, but because of delays he did not go back to the OR until after 1:30.  Since Isaac is 12 months we were able to carry him back to the OR and lay him on the operating table.  We had to give him our goodbyes and kisses before they put him under, but we were excited that we were able to take him back.  I expected it to be harder to leave him, but he didn’t fuss or put up a stink.  It’s like he was saying, “go, I’ve got this and I’ll be taken care of.”

We received a call from the nurse around 4pm to let us know that it took a bit longer to get all his lines and prep work done prior to the actual operation.  So, surgery started about 3:30.  They had scheduled his surgery for 6 hours, so we may be waiting a while.

Here are a few of the pictures I took yesterday!

Clearly he was over his photo shoot