Miss Khloe is now 8 months old! She is saying Mama, Dada, and Nana and is waving "Hi," "Bye," and shakes her head "No No." She can also clap and say "Yay." She gives the best, the biggest, and the sloppiest kisses ever. She hasn't officially mastered crawling yet but can crawl backwards very well. She is also starting to pull up on everything. When she gets mobile, we are all in trouble! She loves being outside and watching her "Bubbas" play. She has such a big personality! It is crazy how fast she is growing up and I can not imagine our lives without our precious girl. She is such a blessing to us all.
I have gotten a lot of questions about how this process has worked so I wanted to go into a little more detail about it. Below you can see a picture of an actual fill. Khloe has a port on top of her head where a needle is inserted. Saline is injected into her tissue expander that has been placed under the good skin where there is no nevus. This good skin stretches as the expander expands when it is filled with the saline. This expanded skin will be used to cover the area where the nevus is removed. We use a numbing cream on her port an hour before the fill so she doesn't feel anything at all. The only thing she doesn't like is being still long enough to get the needle in. We use things to distract like her alphabet toy, her nursery book, her I AM A BABY book and of course, Daddy's phone.
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| Khloe's last fill in Nashville |
- Fill 1 (8/9/13)- 20 ccs
- Fill 2 (8/15/13)- 20ccs
- Fill 3 (8/22/13)- 17ccs
- Fill 4 (8/29/13) -19ccs
- Fill 5 (9/5/13)- 10ccs
- Fill 6 (9/11/13) -11ccs
- Fill 7 (9/19/13)- 15ccs
- Fill 8 (9/26/13)- 15ccs
- Fill 9 (9/30/13)-9ccs
Grand Total: 140 ccs!
To cut down on some of our travel, we did fills 4, 7, and 9 at home. There was a reason I did not go to school to be a nurse and even more, there was no way I was going to be able to stick my baby (believe me, I tried and it was a total disaster) so our neighbor came to our rescue and helped us with the first two at home fills and my friend, Nephy and my mom came to help with the last. But guess what?! WE DID IT!!! No more fills in this expander! Now it is up to God and Dr. Chester! I can rest knowing we did everything we could.
Here is a few pictures of Khloe's expanders. The first two are after her expander was inserted and the swelling had gone down. When the expander was placed, it was filled with 5ccs. The bottom two are pictures of her expander on 9/29/13 with a total of 131ccs.
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| Before Khloe's first fill. 5ccs |
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| Khloe with 131 ccs in her expanders after 8 fills |
And of course, we had to have a little fun with the expanders! The boys thought this was pretty cool.
As most of you know, the decision to remove Khloe's nevus didn't come easy. We spent months praying about it, speaking with other parents, doctors, plastic surgeons, etc. trying to make the right decision for our baby girl and removal through tissue expansion is the only option that gave me/us a sense of peace about what we were dealing with. However, as time grew closer for her first operation, the reality of what we were doing really hit us and I did question whether or not we were doing the right thing. But this was the only option that made sense. If I am being completely honest, even after her first surgery on our first night home with Khloe and a few nights thereafter, I would wake in a panic in the middle of the night fearing we had made a mistake. It was a horrible feeling but something I had to come to terms with. Since then, Khloe's nevus has started changing. Many black spots that are slightly raised have popped up and have caused me a lot of concern. To me, this was all the reassurance I needed that we had in fact made the right decision! I don't want to mess around with this thing and risk our daughter having another PEM or something even worse.
Khloe will have surgery to remove her expander and as much of the nevus as Dr. Chester is able to remove with the expanded skin that she has this Wednesday, October 2nd at 8:30 am CST in Nashville. While we knew going in this process may take more than one round of expanders, I didn't want to admit this was a possibility. However, a few weeks ago, Dr. Chester let us know that she isn't sure we will be able to get the entire nevus this round; however, if she can get as far over as the scar from where she had the PEM removed, she could do an excision of what is left rather than another round of expanders. I am praying that Dr. Chester has more skin than she thinks and is able to remove the entire nevus during this surgery. We know that she will do what is possible with the best outcome for Khloe. God has a plan and we trust Him.
As surgery day comes upon us, so too do the nerves and anxiety we felt before. Although this surgery isn't any easier for us, there is a different feel to it. We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! I will admit that I am a little sad to see her nevus go as it has been a part of her since she came into this world, but I will also be glad to see some of the risk it brings with it gone as well. I am not sure how we will feel when her "mole-hawk" is gone or how it will be seeing her look change once again, but we will get used to that just as we got used to her nevus and her growing "bubble."
I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive throughout all of this. My Mom and Dad are amazing and I can't imagine going through this without them and their support, our family, our friends, our neighbor Jodie for helping out with the fills, Pansy Ramsey for helping out with Kahne on the days we had to travel to Nashville for the fills, Nephy Bean for helping out with Khloe's last fill today, Lauren, Laura, and all of the nevus moms who have roped me back in when I wanted to go off the deep end. Thank you all for all of your thoughts, love, prayers, and support!
Much love!
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| Giving Bubba kisses |
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| Peek |
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| A |
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| Boo! |
