Thursday, December 12, 2013

The Next Step–Surgery on Monday!

IMG_0212Today Mason had a checkup with the plastic surgeon Dr. P to see how his open incision is doing.  I’ll be sharing a photo later in the post, it’s pretty graphic so consider yourself warned.

Overall everything looks good, there is no infection and the tissue is healthy.  The one oddity is that Mason’s sacrum (well, the end of it, his tailbone) is sticking out.  The reason that is odd is because the surgeon cut off part of the tailbone during Mason’s last surgery, which we did NOT know, and it has already regrown.  Healthy bone is not a bad thing, though it may be trimmed again soon.

On Monday Mason will have his 11th surgery.  Dr. P feels that everything looks healthy and in a good place to try closing the incision.  However he is going in with two possible plans and he will decide which one to do once he’s in there and cleaning out the incision. 

  • Option A – He will do a partial closure that uses long-term stitches to allow the incision to continue healing on it’s own.  A third surgery would be needed at a later date to close the rest of the incision. 
  • Option B – He will do a complete closure that also includes long-term stitches.  No further surgeries would be required.

With either option there is still a chance that the incision will reopen and we will be back where we started.  Dr. P also will decide after he finishes the surgery if Mason will need to stay the night at the hospital or not depending on how the surgery went. 

As I promised, here is the picture from this morning’s bandage change showing Mason’s incision.  The white pointy part is the end of the tailbone sticking out.  Scary! IMG_0165

All in all we’re making progress.  Either surgery is a step forward and means we are that much closer to possibly healing this incision.  That also brings us closer to the other surgeries Mason needs, beginning with his spinal cord detethering.  For now I can only focus on what needs done today, so that’s what I’m doing!

5 comments:

  1. I found your blog searching for SB blogs....our daughter is having surgery on Monday, too, to detether (3rd so far) and to actually fix her Diastematomyelia that was not fixed in China. We're concerned she'll lose her mobility....she's up and hobbling at this point and we'd hate to see her lose that among other things. Praying for your sweet boy to be healed. I had a c/section incision that became an open wound like that...took many weeks/months and rounds of antibiotics to get that sucker to heal!

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  2. Following closely. Please keep your readers updated! We will be praying for little Mason and your family.

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  3. That little bone sure did grow a lot since the last picture. Can it grow so much that it comes through? I wonder if that might be impeding the healing of the wound at all. You've done a great job with wound care. It looks so much better than before. I can definitely see the healing that's taken place. Mason is in my prayers, that the wound can be closed and healing will be successful.

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  4. Wishing Mason a good surgery and recovery!!!

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  5. Yikes! That wound does look scary! You mentioned in your previous posts that Mason doesn't feel it - that's a good thing. If he wasn't, it would be more difficult to deal with. Wishing you and Mason luck on Monday! I hope that this time it heals properly.

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