Expander update

 The past few months have been an adventure for sure.  The kids and I are gone for a few days every week as we travel to OKC for the expander fills.  I had almost finished with all six days of the Disney Trip and was just going to post them together. We were somewhat managing but then this happened...


Facebook post review
February 20th
February 21st
(This night turned out to be VERY HARD.  I battled with an OR nurse and the anesthesiologist.  We are used to the outpatient center but could not get in on such short notice, which is why we had no choice to go to the children's hospital.  I won a few of the battles and lost one.  Vivi screamed for an hour post-op because they made her have an IV for this FIVE minute procedure and made her leave it in for an hour after she woke up. ugh.)
February 24th
Update #2, 
Here is what is going on now...


A Vivi Cate update: We are on Week Five of tissue expansion where they slowly inject fluid into the balloon-type expanders they surgically inserted in January. The one on her head is doing great. The one on her neck... not so great as you can see by the picture. As you can see, her skin is not reacting well and is traumatized from the expander. In true Vivi fashion, her sensitive skin is ticked off and is just going to do its own thing regardless of what we say it should be doing. Yesterday it began to tear and bleed, and her expander poked all the way through her skin. Today was her scheduled fill, so her surgeon saw her early this morning. He went in and took out some of the fluid from the expander and stitched up the tear. Our HOPE is her skin heals itself over the next few weeks and we can re-start filling the expander again. This has set us back about a month, but that's okay. If her skin does not play nice, removing the expander is a possibility... which means starting the entire process over again after several months of healing time. We are believing her skin will heal now, so we can start back up in a few weeks. Please keep Miss Vivi Cate in your prayers.

Another Vivi Cate update... Her sutures completely tore sometime last night, which means she woke up this morning with a completely open wound. I'll spare you the details. It's been a rough day with everyone going back and forth on the next step, but we are now on our way to Children's hospital for the suture revision and they will also take out even more fluid from the expander. We are SO glad this is going to be taken care of tonight!


We are heading back to OKC right now. (Just got home yesterday.) Vivi Cate's stitches popped during the night. We have an appt at the outpatient surgery center at 4:30pm today, and then we will drive all the way back home afterward. Please pray the stitches keep this time. This is getting a little tiring . Vivi Cate is still all smiles though... even though she can't eat today because of the anesthesia.



Vivi is stitched back up and happily sleeping in her own bed. The stitches actually held this last time...It was her traumatized thin skin that was too damaged to hold the stitches. This time he deflated the expander completely, tried his best to use healthier skin, and glued surgical tape to the wound area. This is our Hail Mary. If the wound opens back up, the expander has to come out. Please remember her in prayer this week. Regardless of the outcome, God doesn't make mistakes. He has been with us every step in our journey with Vivi, and He is not going to leave us now.
We are now 65 hours post re-stitching, and Vivi Cate's skin has held up so far.  I have made her sit in a chair and play the iPad for the majority of the day, while I check the wound every five minutes while trying not to think of what will happen if it rips open again.  We have been home for two days straight.  It's the first time in weeks, and it feels weird but amazing.  I have groceries in my fridge.  Laundry almost done.  And the playroom picked up.  I felt ambitious enough to get on my blog and immediately noticed my blog template somehow deleted (!?!?) and I lost the template, family pictures, Vivi's adoption timeline, and other stuff I had on here. I'm so sad. I don't think there is anyway to get it back, and I have no time or energy to find another blog template and re-do everything, so pardon the 'construction'.