She woke up in a panic because she needed to use the restroom. It's a whole process to get her out of bed with tubes & wires coming and going in all directions. She was worried she wouldn't make it so we hurried as quickly as we could but it takes a solid couple of minutes to make it happen. She was less than thrilled when she realized that it meant she must get out of bed and walk. It was painful and tiring but she made it. The second time went a little smoother.
There is a drainage tub coming out of her chest where they removed the ribs and also one coming out of the side of her head where they implanted the ear. The goal is to have them slowly but constantly draining blood. The one by her ear serves as drainage but as it does so it suctions and forms the skin around the graft. They use her ribs because 1. they are partially made of cartilage and 2. her body is less likely to reject it because it came from her. They actually need another piece of cartilage for one of the surgeries down the road but it cannot be stored so they have simply implanted it just beneath the skin near her ear and will remove it when they are ready for the next step of reconstruction. It is absolutely fascinating what they can do.
This is only the first step of reconstruction, meaning that it will not look like an ear just yet so don't be surprised when you see her. During this surgery they simply removed the ribs, formed the outer shape of the ear and have implanted it flush with the skull for now.
The next surgeries can be mixed up in order depending on how things go but will include forming an ear lobe (which they will form using what was lobe was there as part of her nubin), the little bump in front of the ear canal and then making the ear poke out from the side of her head. The next 3 surgeries will be less invasive and should be outpatient assuming all goes well. Surgery #5 is when they will form an ear canal, lining it with skin grafts and make a functioning ear drum. This ear will be about 10% bigger than her other ear simply because it will never grow so they allow for growth of the other ear. They assure us that it shouldn't be a noticeable difference.
She had a bit of a rough night. I climbed into bed at 11:30. The nurse came in to do her rounds at 1 am. I couldn't go back to sleep and just as I was starting to doze about 3 am I heard Kambri rustling with her IV. I got up and found her wide awake. She was chatty and we recounted details from yesterday. I showed her pictures and read comments & text messages from loved ones to her. We watched a movie and just had a peaceful time, at least for a while. She started to complain of pain so I stepped into the hall to ask the nurse for some stronger medication. We must have taken just a little bit too long because she quickly turned stubborn and grouchy. She ended up in tears after spitting out two doses of meds.
Blood was seeping through the bandage on her chest so they came in to change it. It's located right on her chest where she can see it and she has been very concerned about it. When they removed the bandage she saw the drainage tube poking out of her chest and immediately panicked because she thought it was her bone sticking out. That caused all sorts of emotion and questions. Poor thing.
She was up from 3 am until about 8:30 am. Her goal for today is to go on 4 walks and to make it to the playroom.
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