4th O surgery!

To make a long story short, Fiona's 4th (and final!) O surgery went great! Her amazing surgeon was able to get full muscle closure! She was only in the hospital over night again this time. She was up and walking the next day, which we thought was amazing! She sure is a little trooper!

This is from a couple days after her surgery.

And this one was to show how much has changed in a year! 9-21-10 was the night before her 1st surgery. And 9-21-11 was about 3 weeks after her 4th surgery. It is amazing to look back at how HUGE it was!

Her scar is healing up nicely and some day we will discuss giving her a belly button. Tom thinks we should leave her without one because it will give her good stories to tell, like that she was abducted by aliens, hahaha!

New O Pictures

These were taken the night before her 3rd surgery (in the hotel room!) with the dressing on.

This was a few hours after surgery.

This was 3 days post surgery (the incision was still nicely closed up).

These wer taken last night (1 month post surgery). The incision has opened at the very top and 2 places towards the bottom. The greenish part is the Gortex patch. The left part (well her right side) is very dry and flaky and we're not really sure why. We're hoping it's not a big blister because that would really suck!

New O Pictures!

I have shown some of these before, but I wanted to show the progress!
This was 3 days after she was born.

The night before her 1st surgery.

4 days after 1st surgery.

Before 2nd surgery

5 days after 2nd surgery.

Last week :)

We Are Home!! (And O pictures)

WE ARE HOME!! YAY! We got to come home yesterday. We got home around 7:30 pm. We are so glad to be home! And Fiona is doing much better today. She is back to smiling a lot! Not QUITE back to her normal self, but I don't blame her, I'm sure her muscles still hurt.

Ok, so I decided to put up all of the picture that I have of her O from birth until now. I know a lot of people are curious as to what it looks like. And I also hope it might help with people doing research on Omphaloceles and the "paint and wait" method. I could not find much information, let alone real stories about Omphaloceles and especially the "paint and wait" method. Hopefully these picture will help parents see what the progression of skin will look like and how long it will take. Please don't go any further if you are grossed out by stuff like this!




CAUTION: O PICTURES BELOW!!!

These 2 were taken 3 days after she was born. You can still see through the sack. The darker parts are the intestines and I think the lighter part is her liver.

This one was taken at about 5 weeks. (they were putting the wound gel on it)

These 2 were taken at about 1 month.

These two at 1 1/2 months.

These two at a little over 2 months.

These three at about 3 months.

These two at about 7 1/2 months.

This was the day before her surgery. We were comparing the size to her monkey!

This was 2 days after surgery.

And this was when we got home last night (4 days post surgery). Again comparing the size to her monkey! You can see how the base is much wider now.

The skin is black because it's blood supply was cut off. It wasn't like normal skin that has it's own blood supply, so when it was seperated from the organs it lost all of it's blood. It will now probably peel off and the O will have to grow new skin again like it did at the beginning.

Beware: Pictures of the O!

So you can see the skin is nicely growing up the O. It is about 1/2 way now. The green parts are the granular tissue and underneath that you can see the new skin forming. I think it's amazing what our bodies can do (even when they screw up!) No one is exactly sure what the litte purple parts are. The surgeons think it might be poop working its way through there. Tom thinks they are bruises which would make sense since the skin is so new and fragile. But either way it doesn't seem to bother her so that's good!

Tom is holding her down so I can change the dressing on it. We do that entirely ourselves now at 8 pm and the nurse does it at 8 am (because we are not up that early). She actually likes being held like that most of the time! After we are done changing the dressing then we give her a bath and change her bed and clothes. (Tom gave her a bath and changed her diaper for the first time the other night. It was so cute because he had to ask "how exactly" he was supposed to wipe her!) And then we usually hold her for awhile!