The Bionic boy, 9 months later...

We headed to Mercy this morning to have our 9 month follow-up for Sam's Calavarial Reshaping surgery!  It was fun to see Dr. Singhal again & Sam gave him a nice thank you with lots of photos for their office.

Sam had a Cat Scan last wednesday the 22nd.  We appreciate all the prayers & good thoughts.  He did perfect & did not have to be sedated once again.  I believe he is either 0-5 or 0-6 on sedation for his CT's.   The nurse, radiologist & child life specialist were all surprised & enjoyed their awake & chatty patient.

Here are some quick snapshots of the CT results we got to see today.  The first one is a profile of Sam's skull.  You can see the top of his spine on the left & his eye orbit on the right.  The gaps in bone you see are from his most recent surgery in Feb '08.  There are still lots of plates in place & where you see small circles,  those are screws that have yet to completely dissolve.

The second shot is of the top of Sam's head with the forehead at the top of the photo.  Here you can see the "tounge in groove" cuts that were made to spread out the skull & make more room for Sam's big brain.  His skull circumfrence was measured again today & it has grown at an appropriate rate although he continues to be off the charts:).  

The third photo gives you a pretty good view of all the plates & screws Sam still has in his forehead.  (I can count 36 screws just on the right side of his forehead... and I was assured that was not even close) Dr. Singhal said we will continue to see his forehead smoothing out & changing shape as the bone fills in the gaps.  This picture just amazed us...  and Sam thought it was pretty cool as well.  

The last photo shows tissue... specifically, all the gray you see inside the white lines is Sam's brain.  Dr. Singhal noted once again that Sam's brain is very large & that it keeps filling all the space it is given.  He was glad to see that this is the first CT Sam has had where the brain was not actively pushing the bone out to make more room.  We were very glad to hear that!  The white lines are the edges of Sam's skull & where you see "gaps" there is lighter gray where bone is filling in....  Fascinating!

All the news was good... but my personal favorite was hearing Dr. Singhal say we did not need to see him again for 18 months!!!  We love this man, do not doubt that & we could not be more grateful for what he has done for us!  But...  we are super excited to have an "all clear" for 18 months!