7 weeks post-op!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a safe and enjoyable holiday. We had a great trip up north and spent lots of quality time with family and friends.

Finn rounded out the year with his 22nd flight in 12 months. He is still the best little traveler. He is 15 months old today! (Not sure how that happened.) I can't believe all he has accomplished in such a short period of time. We have returned to a totally normal sleep schedule. Actually, he is sleeping later than he used to even before surgery. I don't know if it's a growth spurt, the holidays, his new sound machine or just his New Years resolution but we are not complaining.

I just wanted to quickly mention that since Finn was diagnosed with cranio, I have learned of 5 other people in my life that have had a family member or friend touched by cranio. It is crazy to me that I had never even heard of it and now I am learning of other people who have gone through the same thing. One of the reasons I started this blog was to help others going through this. I was fortunate enough to be called upon for advice when a high school friend's nephew was diagnosed with the same cranio as Finn. She put me in touch with the parents and we had a wonderful phone conversation. I hope the phone call was as valuable as they said it was. I am so grateful to be able to share our story and help calm the fears of other.

There really isn't much to report in regards to his head but I thought I would give a quick update anyway.

His scab was basically entirely gone 4-5 weeks after surgery. The incision looks really good. It is still pink but it is barely noticeable through his hair. 99% of the stitches have dissolved. (Did I ever mention how many stitches he had?? The doctor said somewhere between 100-200. That'll be a cool story when he is older!) You can see the scar when his hair is wet and I combed along the incision so you can really see it in the pictures below. I am sure it will only continue to improve over time.

(Click on the photos below to enlarge.)

 

Here is his profile shot for his 

silhouettes we had made. (1 month post op.)

Reminder - this is what it looked like before.

Recently, on the cranio Facebook support page, someone posted pictures of their son's post-op CT scan images. If you recall, we did't have one done and we were left with a drawing of what was done to Finn's skull. Well these CT images are crazy (and may be hard to look at) but I felt that I should share because it is what I imagine Finn's skull to look like. Their son also has sagittal and the doctor also made barrel staves on his skull. 

The image below is an aerial shot looking at the top of the patient's head.

               (Think of it as a blooming onion.)

(Rendering of Finn's skull.)

You'll notice in both surgeries they did not just cut along the fused suture. According to research, the chances of a suture fusing prematurely a second time are higher if they cut a long the fused suture line.

I have officially gotten used to his new head and I am slowly starting to forget what it used to look like. 

Some days I look at pictures and I think there isn't much change but I try to remember that it's really about what's going on under all that crazy hair that matters. 

One last before and after for good measure.

After

Before

Wishing you all an extra healthy 2014!