Just a quick update on Ani’s surgery…
She’s doing well. She’s much much tougher than I’ve ever been.
The surgery and recovery were longer than we expected, and they were a lot more aggressive during this first shot than we thought they’d be. We assumed they would try to remove about 25-30% of the nevus, but they ended up taking out about 70%.
(Warning: picture that includes the wound after the jump)
That’s great for the removal, but it meant a much longer wound than we thought. We were under the impression that they’d be working with a small area confined to the center of the birthmark, but she has stitches covering a crescent shaped wound starting near her eye, down to the corner of her mouth, then curving to the back of her jaw line. It’s a bit swollen around her eye and mouth, and all the skin is pulled pretty tight around that whole side of her face.
She’s in good spirits, though. Here she is just after waking up the morning after surgery (and with no pain killers in her system):
The only time she’s cried so far was when she saw the wound in the mirror, poor girl.
Otherwise, she’s pretty good. She’s drained and vomitted a bit in the car when we left the hospital, but she got her appetite back during the drive home and hasn’t thrown up again. She also has an incredibly high pain tolerance, so she’s only needed a couple doses of the pain meds.
Other than the wound, you’d hardly know that anything happened. She’s perky. And bossy. And wants to go out and ride the new Barbie bike we may have bought her the day before the operation… She has a hard time not touching the wound, so we have to reapply the antibiotic ointment pretty often.
We have to go up for a followup visit June 9, then schedule the next surgery for about 6 months down the road. The stitches are the dissolvable variety, so no need to go back in to have those removed. Otherwise, they just said she can decide when she feels well enough to go back to preschool, etc., and she can start bathing again any time.
Can’t stress enough how amazing Anikka is. She was nervous while we were at the hospital, waiting for her turn in the OR, but she handled it better than kids 2-3 times her age. You could hear others screaming and crying, while Ani stoically and patiently waited. Hell, we saw teenagers in tears that went through less than our Princess.
And the worst part about the whole thing to her? The stupid hospital socks.
