Dr. Kelly

Today Finn met his first, and hopefully only, plastic surgeon Dr. Kelly. Dr. Kelly is the head of pediatric plastics at Vanderbilt. During our meeting with Dr. Kelly he gave us an overview of the procedure. I will provide my "captive audience" with the same overview. No, I am not all self-consumed; just trying to lighten the mood.

Finn will be going in for surgery on Tuesday, April 27th at 6:00 a.m. (This is also Michael's 29th Birthday!) Thankfully Finn is the first surgery of the day. After getting checked in Finn's entire head will be shaved. I made sure that they were going to shave it all. I was mildly concerned that they would only shave the top leaving all the bushy side hair. Finn would really look like a little old man then.

As for the surgical procedure Dr. Kelly explained that he will cut Finn from ear to ear across the top of his head. He will then take a small surgical saw and cut along the sagittal suture. The piece of bone will then be removed. Next, Dr. Kelly will put spacers between the two plates to ensure that the bones will not grow back together too quickly.

After the surgery Finn will spend two nights in the NICU. During this time he will be heavily sedated which will help with pain management. We are hoping the rest of Finn's teeth come in during these few days :) After that we will spend four to five more nights on the recovery floor. In all we will be in the hospital for a week.

Dr. Kelly explained that Vanderbilt does three to four of these surgeries every week. That made me feel much better. He also explained the risks; the biggest of course being infection. He said that he will cover Finn with antibiotics the entire time. He also said that he has never had a child develop an infection. The other risk was excessive bleeding. Apparently the head bleeds really bad. Michael and I are going this week to give blood for the transfusion, but Finn will get most of his blood from the blood bank.

During the question and answer portion of the meeting I asked Dr. Kelly if Finn will come out of surgery acting differently (timid, scared, shut-off). He said that most babies act happier after the surgery. But he commented that he didn't think it was possible for Finn to be any happier than he already is. (Finn was in a great mood during the entire appointment. He laughed and jumped and talked the whole time).

We go back on Monday the 26th to meeting with the rest of the surgical team. We will be able to ask additional questions during this meeting.

After leaving Vanderbilt we all went to Michael's office for a quick visit and then we went back home. We made fajita's for dinner and watched Mad Men. Then I rocked Finn for about an hour before turning in.