Surgery Time for June 1

We'll again here we are another pre surgery weekend. We found out we have to be at Children's at 1:45pm tomorrow the 1st. Scheduled to be in surgery at 3pm. And now it may take a bit longer because we just got off the phone with Dr Estes who is one of Skylers Surgeons and told him that Skyler's other side is acting weird now. (This kid is going to land him self a nice spot in the hospital until this thing is completly finished if hes not careful!!) It's loose and wobbly and when we turn the screw it has no resistance. UGH! So the Dr. mentioned he would take a look tomrrow at both sides. So that in a week we don't have a check up only to find out the OTHER side is broken...could you imagine!!??!
I told the dr Skyler was in need of a slow down pill....he laughed, I really wasn't joking tho :P
He had mentioned something about a flexiable arm distractor...?? I dunno but sounds $$ LOL He said they aren't used to this happening so they will try and get it so it wont happen again. PHEW, thank good ness right?

Anyways. We will keep you posted. The nice thing about the surgery times tomorrow is Skyler can actually have breakfast! So I dont have to fight off a cranky hungry 6 year old for to long.

Please keep him in your thoughts for a quick stay and speedy recovery! (again.)

all our love

Casie Mike Skyler and Seth

MAY 4 2009

MAY 21 2009

MAY 28 2009

As you can see the top photo is Skyler 11 days before surgery a frontal view of his jaw, the the 2nd picture is Skyler a week ago, the dr was very happy to see equal amounts of growth between the spots in the back above the bars there are gaps you can see tho the bone is not visible because it is not hardened yet. And on the last picture on the left side you can see a great amount of space and obvious signs that the distraction is working. Unfortunatly not the case for the right side. It is almost exactly the same as a week ago. Hasnt moved at all. So thats why his jaw looks lopsided. You can even tell how much its affected the placement of his teeth right now. Look at the first pic and the last pic everything has moved over greatly.

Skylers surgery is Monday the 1st of June they will be giving us exact times to be down there but we are told his surery will be at 3pm, and should be another 2 hours and will be an over night stay. It's just crazy. We were so confident that things were going to go so well with this, and that it was the right decision and we would see no problems. But we should know by now that nothing comes flawless. I guess I wouldn't be so bummed except the dr. seemed so bummed and baffled on to why this happened. And then by the x ray he couldnt see the problem.

Like I told the dr tho, Skyler has never done things the easy way, why start now.

Any how, we will make it over this bump. It might take a little longer than first planned, but there's gotta be a reason behind it somewhere.
We are off to spend the day in the beautiful sunshine now, hope everyone enjoys the WHOLE weekend!! Its so nice to actaully see seasons right?

All our love,
Mike Casie and the boys

A Bit of A Set Back

Over the past few days Skyler has seemed a bit more sensitive to turning the screws each morning and night. And the right side had seemed to be longer than the left. I voiced our concerns at our visit today down at the Oral surgeon and x rays confirmed that something is wrong with the right side. It's not progressing at all since last weeks xrays. It is much farther behind than the left and so it looks like his jaw is crooked now.
They aren't sure HOW this happened, but will be taking Skyler back into the OR on Monday or Tuesday to find out what exactly went on and if they will be able to fix it to continue the process. We will be finishing the last week and a half of the other side as planned, and the right side will hopefully follow but this will set us back 3 weeks at most. So there goes the last few weeks of school and adds another month or month and half of healing once the actual turning is complete. Its a bummer, we are sad, and confused on what happened, he was doing great! I even was planning on going back to work on Monday because our wonderful daycare provider has done a trial run with him and is comfortable caring for him through the day. But we will put this on hold again, and try to see what we can do to make it work. Dr Egbert was pretty bummed and confused on to why this happened.
I will post pics tomorrow.
Thanks for checkin in on us
The Caughlins

We just had a check up at the oral surgeon. It didnt go well. Will post pics and more details soon.

Our First Post Op Appt

If you didn't think so then, I will tell you now, Our son Skyler James Caughlin is so remarkably strong it's unbelievable! He's doing so great, it makes a cold look measly. Can you say SUPER MAN!?! Nothing hurts, hes fine he says. I have learned to read him that he's probably telling me the truth too. When he gets cranky, awnry then I know that maybe he's sore. But as of yet today, only his antibiotic.

We were in Seattle today at 9am for some x rays and a check up. The x rays looked rather cool I am going to try and snag some next week to show you. It's crazy to look at, even just at his teeth, where the 6 teeth on the bottom were pulled in Jan, 9 are trying to come threw there!! its like they are all pointed in that direction, one fighting the other to poke through some open space. And in the back of the jaw you can see the space where its made an opening. I didn't get exact measurements today, but its defiantly visible to the eye on x ray.

I have to tell you a funny story. So the dental assistant was cleaning up Skyler's screw sites and asking me questions She says "So mom, how are you cleaning these?" I looked at here and said, "A tooth brush..." She stops a minute looks at me, I think to my self wrong answer? "Well I make him rinse with water after each meal as well" She interrupts and says "I hope its a soft one" I told her it wasn't any different, we weren't told he needed a special brush, THEN I realised she was actually talking about the sites where the distractor comes out...duh. She thought I was a mean mommy!! Could you imagine scrubbing his chin with a tooth brush, HELLO!! LOL

anyways, that's been my excitement for the day. Dr. Egbert said we could increase our turning too 1 full turn twice a day now which is nice, he says it would put us a day ahead or so (it's just a mm tho, can't be too much of an advance right?)

And we go back again next Thursday...Yippee. They will take the rest of the steri stips off if they haven't fallen off by then, so it will look less "surgical"
Talk to you all later, if I don't report much these next few days, no news is good news and I hope you all have a great Memorial Day Weekend! Can you believe its NEARLY summer already!! YEAH!!
~Casie and Family

A little update on the Little Man

Skyler's biggest worry isn't that he hurts, or that he can't play rough like he's used to. No it's really terrible, he's not allowed to have cookies, "dr. says so"

He's doing great! We have had no issues "KNOCK ON WOOD" this far. Our first dr appt post op is tomorrow at 9am. I am not sure if they will take any sorts of xrays, and if they did if it would show us any great moves, so we will see.

I think the hardest part is keeping it looking clean. It can get so grody so quick and then it gets red around the sites, and I am so affraid of infection. I swear Mike is irritated by my questions if it looks bad or not, I think I am a natual worrier.

Still managing to keep him entertained with the processed food. The boy even asks for 2nd and 3rds!! I can imagine if they weigh him tomorrow they won't see a drop in numbers. OINK OINK.

Seth is doing fine with all this. He got to go to Gramma Ali's the past few days, he thought that was a real treat! I guess he played in Grampa Day's tack and trailer all day long. What a rug rat. There's been a few times where he's swatted at Skyler's Jaw, not sure why, maybe Skyler's been in his face but we have had to get after him and boy you would think we took his birthday away, poor thing isn't used to being told "no".

But all is well, we are venturing out today to go play at the Children's Museum with some friends. Hoping to settle Skyler down, I thought he was stir crazy in the ICU...HA!

Here are some pics of him from before (i have posted them before but wanted to show you a before and after) surgery and then the ones from today.

oh p.s. Our FAVORITE lunch...Peanut butter and Jelly Soup, if ya want to know how to make it, ask I will tell ya :P

Our First night home

It sure was a shock to be more than halfway down to visit Skyler yesterday and get a phone call from mike saying that Skyler will be discharged before noon! Like I say , that NEVER happens! But there is a first time for everything! He was just doing too good to be cooped up! So after we got all things packed up and learned what we needed to learn, Skyler wanted to go back down to the playground and play! Silly kid! But it was a beautiful day out! So it was ok, nice to be free but also gave us a little glimpse on how our clumbsy child would be and incase in that small time frame something happened we were right there (yea I was nervous!)

It has been nice to be home and have us ALL sleep in our own beds! Skyler did very well yesterday afternoon. We had some errands to run since we had NO food in the house and no food processor, Skyler has taken possession over it, its his and that is that! :P By the time we got home you could tell that the few errands we ran were enough to poop him out, he was leaning his head on the shopping cart and all, so even tho he's got his brave tough face on, it still shows he's not 100% (mom knew that!)

My mom and dad brought over pizza for us, and yes it went threw the processor, and yes Skyler LOVED it *its ok to cringe, I did* He never complained about pain and when it came to bed time and our routine the hardest part was convincing him why a cookie wasn't a good idea as a reward for going potty. But pudding worked just as well.

We were on day 3 of turning the screws, my first time. I'll tell ya the truth, I would be a nurse if it wasn't for the whole giving shots into solid things (people) and turning the screws kinda fell into that category...the resistance was a bit of a shock at first, but he didn't flinch and so that was what made it easier on me.

He slept all night with no issues and was up and going at 7:30 am! And we turned again, with no problems. Scheduled our first post-op appt for this up coming Thursday at 9am. they might be doing x rays to see if they can tell any progress. I think that day I will do some photos, because now we have made some turns but too the naked eye it won't be enough to tell any changes yet.

Still working on nursing so we can have some help around here with care and maybe get things back to "normal" but since Skyler has been doing so well, here and at the hospital, we may have to deal with no nursing support. Our insurance plan doesn't include that option, but we are trying to appeal (story of our lives) and get some 10 hours a day so that I may go back to work. Skyler doesn't belong in day care at this point. I just wish there was an easier way to do it all. I am waiting on a call from our social worker today. I have explained to them that by not wanting to flat out say Yes Skyler is ok at home, doing well no issues, but really I just need a very expensive nanny?? yea, insurance says yea right.

All right enough rambling. :) I know it won't be too long before this is all behind us. June 6th is our last day of turning, and then its 4-8 weeks of healing. Let the count down begin!
~Casie and Family