Saturday, May 5, 2012

Surgery for Sagittal Craniosynostosis

Liam was born with part of his skull fused, also known as Sagittal Craniosynostosis. There are two different types of surgeries that can be performed for his condition. If the baby is young enough (which Liam was) you can have the endoscopic procedure done. In this procedure they make two slits in the head. One is in the middle of the head, one is in the back of the head. The doctor will then remove two inches by six inches of his skull so that his skull can grow properly. This picture was taken the day before surgery...Lincoln and William in Thomas' old clothes.
The day before surgery we went to the hospital to have Liam's bloodwork done and they branded him.
This is right before surgery. Kids hospital clothes are so cute!!
Right when Liam got out of surgery the nurses put a size 1 diaper on him and the next day his entire body had swollen up so bad they had to put him into a size 3.
Some head shots a couple of days later when the swelling went down a little more.
We were in the hospital Wed-Sat because he was having trouble eating. We finally took him off of the heavy duty medication which allowed him to wake up more and eat.
William has done way better than I ever expected with the surgery and recovery! He is such a happy baby!! He got his helmet two weeks after the surgery. The helmet is still taking some adjusting...for his parents, it is really hard to take on and off! Liam is a champ though! We are on a schedule for his helmet right now because he has to work up to wearing it 23 hours a day. Today he is doing 8 hours on, one hour off. Last night was his first night sleeping with it and he did pretty good. He woke up to eat a lot more than usual but he was able to sleep better than I thought he would. Tomorrow he will be wearing his helmet the full 23 hours!
Update: Liam is now a few weeks shy of 4 years old and he has no learning disabilities or vision problems. You would never know he had this procedure done aside from his scar in the back of his head which you can see if we cut his hair short.

4 comments:

Pete and Alison said...

I'm so glad that he is doing well! He looks like a great baby.

Jane Packer said...

I remember when Thomas wore those outfits! Give Liam a hug for me. He is so stinking cute!

L ~ S said...

Someone probably already said it, but he looks like an adorable football player in his helmet. I am glad he is doing so well!

Annie and Dan said...

I am so glad things are going well. It is so amazing what procedures can be done today and I am glad he is such a trooper through all of this. And I agree with the above comment, he does look adorable like a football player :)