9th fill done & we reached our goals on 2 expanders tonight!!!

This week started off great, Brayden went to his pre-surgery doctor appointment and got cleared for sugery! He even met his new peditrician we want to take him and his baby brother too and Geoffrey and Brayden both really liked him.  Friday morning Brayden woke up with a cough,ugh.  The stress starts.  So off to the doctor he went.  Dr. said his lungs, ears and throat look ok.  He said as long as he is eating, playing like normal and all he has is a little cough, he's sure it's allergies.  So now Brayden is taking allergery medicine and that seems to be helping. 

For the past few weeks we have noticed Brayden's right expander was a little red on the bottom.  But it didn't look that bad, so we continued to fill it. On Friday I sent an email to Dr. Bauer and he said to stop filling that expander and to keep an eye on it.  Ugh, just what we didn't want to hear.  We are at 900 cc's on the right expander and our goal was 1000 cc's.  We were so close to reaching our goal.  But at the same time, we need to play it safe and don't want to risk loosing that skin we stretched.   Saturday morning when Brayden got up, I noticed it looked worse, it had a small dark spot in it.  Either it is a blood vessel or a hole starting.  So I put tegoderm which is like a band aide on that area to hold it in place.  When I emailed Dr. Bauer a picture of it, he said, "The last expansion just over stressed the blood supple to the flap.  As long as we keep the tegoderm in place it should be fine until surgery.  Try to keep his clothes from rubbing and no more filling that epander." So now we pray that that area doesn't get any worse over the next 8 days.

The area with the blood vessel or hole is at the bottom right expander

 

 

On a happy note, we reached our goals for 2 expanders tonight! Brayden cried during the fill again tonight, so we are happy next week is our last fill. I just hope he sleeps better tonight then he did last Sunday night.  Last Sunday night he cried from 8 pm till 2 am because he was so uncomfortable. Tonight so far he is doing a little better.

 

We are so happy the left side and leg expanders, we haven't had any problems with them this round.  Here we thought the leg expander would be our problem but it was the largest expander on the right. We got 85 cc's on the left expander and 40 cc's on the leg expander tonight. When Brayden was at the dr this week, they weighed him. His expanders weigh 5 lbs! Now wonder he's so uncomfortable at times.

 

We still have 1 fill left, we will do the final fill on Saturday night.  That way it gives the skin a few days to stretch before surgery.  Over all we are happy with the way this round is going, we just pray for good results during surgery.  If everything goes ok, this could be the last round of expanders for Brayden.  In 8 days we will find out! I pray it's the last round and we don't have to put him through this anymore.

 

Look at those huge bubbles! My brave boy! So proud of him

 

Left expander at 765 cc's and our goal was 750 cc's!

 

Leg expander at 530 cc's and our goal was 500 cc's!