Hard to believe there's more to our story after the last blog post, but I'm popping back on here to give the remaining surgical update. This will be much shorter...promise. For real. I really do.
After another 5 hours, Dr. Owen came to meet us with an update of his own. I'll attempt to summarize again, for sake of simplicity.
First, Dr. Owen made a vertical incision on the back right side of Zane's head, stretched the skin forward, and moved it behind the ear to attempt to bump it out. He also added a double layer of skin graft to same location for extra "padding." Then he braced it with that same pink foam from his prior surgeries and stitched it to his head again. (Z will be so not happy about that last part...at all. The doc should never have promised Zane he wouldn't need to use it...because y'all know good and well that Zane will never let him live this one down.)
Secondly, he took cartilage from his left ear to add to the right lobe and also took more skin grafts from the groin to cover that. The lobe is a little more square than he’d like but hopefully it fixes itself as it "shrink wraps" or it will be an easy tweak later. Incidentally, our impression of the skin grafting was that it would be minimal this go-round, and while I'm sure that is true, relatively-speaking, we were pretty surprised to see the incision looking pretty angry, hip-to-hip again. Bummer. That was definitely the largest amount of pain for Zane last time so we will just be praying for quick relief there.
Third, we also thought incorrectly about the tragus, assuming he still had to build it completely. However, Dr. Owen said that he’d previously placed cartilage for the tragus in an earlier surgery, but it hadn't stayed where it was supposed to be. So today, he pulled it back toward ear canal more and stitched it there to keep it in place. Hopefully, it will obey.
Lastly, Dr. Owen did have to leave a single drain tube like that first surgery a few years ago, when he had 3 different drain tubes. He said there was just too many things going on to not give it some more time to drain out. And so, of course, that means we’re staying overnight. This is one of those, "barring any significant complications," that would keep us from indeed having an OUTPATIENT surgery. For the love. If I had a dollar for every time...but yea, we all packed a bag anyway because Carr fam jam. Still, we should be able to break out tomorrow morning as soon as that drain tube is removed.
The recovery outlook is bleak in Zane's mind, of course, but we're trying to see all the positive. He will need to lay pretty low for a couple days, so he's excited about significantly more screen time and the wait staff.
As I mentioned, he's got the pink foam on the ear, covered yet again with the Glascock dressing...also known as the cone from..."not a nice place." :/ He'll have to continue to wear that for at least the first couple weeks until we have the post-op for Owen. Hansen's post-op is usually a month, but we're primarily watching for extreme dizziness. Little man will have to forego outside recess and pe for the next month or more, as well as no trampoline. Wait...what...ugh. The skin grafting and cartilage harvesting areas just have skin glue and are open beyond that.
Whew. That was the simplified version. He's already back to being...Zane. One of the residents was trying to check his vision by having him follow his finger. At one point, he failed to do so and kept looking forward...at his movie. Before the doc freaked out, I got onto Z to follow the instructions. He dryly said, "I am. I'm multitasking." :/ And THEN, when the floor nurse asked him to rate his pain, he said 9. Hang on, dude. Roll with me here. About 45 minutes ago, you said it was a 5, and you've had pain meds. Your pain went UP after the meds? I'm grilling him about his responses, while the nurse is trying to make sense of things and record notes, and then he finally says, "Mom, I was just being dramatic." Good grief...on steroids. Matter of fact, can I get some medication over here?!? Sheesh.
Unfortunately, no update to give on the hearing of the right ear. It's packed pretty well in there and was mucho groggy until just recently. So we'll know more in the days ahead...but definitely once all the packing comes out.
On a final note, be sure to stay in the hospital long enough for someone else to clean up the projectile vomit. Done and done. Good thing he said the chicken Alfredo was terrible and only took a tiny bite...because holy spew-fest, Batman. You're welcome. You'll thank me some day.
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