Photos: Post/Pre-Surgery Week

Campbell is set to head back to the OR tomorrow morning to replace a distractor that malfunctioned.  She’ll be the first case in the morning, and this surgery should take less time than her last one.  Once she’s out, she’ll spend a night in the PICU for observation and then hopefully move to the floor for a few days while she recovers.

The past week has been emotional for Joel and I.  It started with saying, “See you soon” to Campbell last Wednesday when she went into the OR.  She was so brave.

Here she is right before her surgery.  As you can see, her head ends right behind her ears and is quite flat.  After surgery, it will be more full in back and be able to grow as her brain grows.

Campbell was patient 3334.  We tracked her progress in the OR on a screen in the waiting room.  At the time of this photo, she was in the OR almost 6 hours and still had another hour to go.

Jamie Cook and her daughter, Callie Anne, cheered on Campbell from Arkansas.  Callie Anne has Apert Syndrome and is two weeks older than Campbell.  Her mom, Jamie, has become a friend, and I look forward to our families meeting someday.

Here’s our girl after surgery, settling into the PICU.  She came out of the OR with quite a few IV’s.

Here is Campbell on the day after surgery “celebrating” her four-month birthday.  The swelling has begun to set in but is mostly in the back of her head.  We couldn’t ask for a sweeter baby.

Here are some of Campbell’s awesome nurses.  The staff at CHLA have been amazing and are taking very good care of our girl.  We feel blessed to be here.

Several friends have come to visit Campbell.  Here are a couple of photos:

We’ve run into two Apert families in the lobby, the Reiss Family and the Weissberg family, both of whom see some of the same doctors as Campbell. Tania and Miles came up to visit Campbell.  Miles is a precious boy and was so excited to say hi to Baby Campbell.

Occasionally, Joel and I took a break from the hospital to get some fresh air.  It was wonderful to have a few quiet moments to regroup.

A child-life specialist came by and lent us some toys for Campbell’s crib.  She’s been exploring using her hands (with a little help).

We added a few bright toys to the top of her crib.  While we’re not sure how much she sees, here’s her view:

Some more pictures of our little girl.  She’s quite a charmer.

Last picture of our girl. Here she is with her “antennas” wrapped up in her cocoon.  She has gauze strips over her distractors to catch any drainage (the gauze is gone now.)

Thank you, friends, for your support, messages, and prayers. Tomorrow is a new day, full of promise and possibilities, and we are grateful to have people like you in our lives.