Surgery

5:00 PM Tuesday. I was grateful he was going to surgery but still fearful this might be the last time I'd hear my boy's little voice or see him in his eyes. I kissed him on the check and prayed in my heart for the very best as they wheeled him away. Then we went to the waiting room for the long wait. They had told us it would be at least 1 1/2- 2 hours of surgery. We decided to try to get some dinner, we had eaten nothing since breakfast. It was hard to eat with the huge knot in my stomach. I literally felt sick - nauseated. We ate a little and went back to wait. One of the surgeons came at about 2 hours and told me things were going well and they were almost done. I felt so relieved, and went back to wait, but it was over 2 hours more before anyone returned for us. Then the surgeon said it was much more expansive than they had expected. The brain was herniated out through the crack in the front and a large amount of his dura (covering of brain) was scraped away. They had removed the frontal bone above the crack and the bone above the eyes below the crack. He said dirt was everywhere. They cleaned it out, used mesh to patch the dura and put all the bones back in. Now plastic surgery was going to finish the job. This was too much to take in. I would have never imagined that doing these things and surviving was even possible ... and done on my little boy.

All in all he was in surgery for about 5 hours with a team of 7 surgeons (3 neuro and 4 plastic). The broken part of the skull removed and a titanium plate repairing that area. A lot of scrubbing and then a large part of dura repaired with mesh. Frontal bones replaced and crack closed. The nurse told me they had used 34 screws. Finally the "scalped" side had been closed as well as all the incisions.