The Anderson Family: February 2013

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Colton's Surgery

On January 30th Colton had Craniosynostosis surgery, a condition that he was born with. The type of Craniosynostosis that Colton had was Single Suture Synostosis Sagittal. (The sagittal suture is located on the midline of the head and extends from the soft spot towards that back of the head. Because a portion of his skull was fussed his head did not properly grow from side to side. He had the appearance that was long and narrow with some forehead protrusion. To correct the problem surgery was necessary.) The operation was done at Children's Hospital in St. Paul. Two surgeons preformed the surgery. They made an incision from ear-to-ear and removed parts of the skull to correctly open it, reshape, and allow growth. It took two hours to prep his little body and two hours to preform the surgery. He was then in recovery for another hour after before we were finally able to see him. It was one of the longest and hardest days that we've gone through but everything went well. We spent four nights at the hospital, one night in the ICU. Colton recovered very well and quickly. The first couple of days were hard as he was in pain and on several strong pain killers. He also experienced sever swelling, which was expected and very common for this surgery. He couldn't open his eyes for a day or so when the swelling was at it's peak. It's so hard to see your baby in such pain and discomfort. Not being able to communicate to him or and have him able to communicate to you was the most difficult part. It was hard to know if he was in great pain or just not happy. But we made it through, everything went as expected and we are now home. Colton continues to recover well and is no longer on any pain medication a week after surgery which is amazing to me. Here are some photos of our journey...