New Photos

Hi Everyone!  Here are some new photos from Father’s Day and Laney’s Birthday!  Have a great day!

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Safe and Sound

Quick update…Devyn is home!  She is a little grumpy and a little tender, but she’s at home with her Mommy, Daddy, and sisters and ready to play!  Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!!

Hold on to your hats.

Little Miss Devyn is a trooper and has bounced back from major cranial reconstruction surgery in record time.  She is doing so well that she is being discharged tomorrow and will be home with us sooner than we had hoped.  As you can imagine she is still a little tender from the operation.  We will keep you posted on her upcoming progress.

Devyn’s New Dome is Here!!!

Thank you Dr. Duncan and Dr. Persing for working an absolute miracle today.  The “after” pictures are a little rough she had just come out of surgery.  We wanted to get some pictures as soon as possible though, because tomorrow the swelling will set in and be rather severe.  She is beginning to look like her twin… finally.

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Empty Nest

Just a few minutes ago I walked out onto the back porch to take a picture of our “almost flying” baby birds and as I opened the door all four little ones took their first flights.  Not to be overly cliche…but do you think that I’m supposed to “get” anything from that?  What a beautiful sight!

Say your prayers.

Devyn’s surgery is still set for Thursday.  So please do us a large favor and say a few prayers that our luck holds out until Thursday.  Take care and we will update on Thursday night.

Baby Birds

Our baby birds are here.  Here are a few pictures of our little feather balls!

A Few New Photos

Finally…the pictures have been posted!

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Surgical Miracles

As Devyn’s cranioplasty gets closer we find ourselves stumbling upon all kinds of stories about children who have undergone “miracle” plastic surgeries.  Here is the latest we have found and are very encouraged by this girl’s story.  Hope everyone is well and we will keep you posted before and after Devyn’s surgery.

 
Once-Disfigured Girl Attends Prom After 18 Surgeries

Wednesday May 28, 2008 

By: Marrecca Fiore, Fox News

Cody Hall was born with a hemangioma, a tumorous birthmark that distorted the shape of her face and grew larger as she got older.

When she was 1-year-old, her doctors in England told her parents that nothing could be done about her condition, so her parents took her to see surgeons in the U.S.

Fourteen years and 18 reconstructive surgeries later, most of them at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, the girl who once had a hopelessly deformed face was flashing a beautiful smile at the prom.

“Cody came to me several years back after she had undergone an initial procedure in San Francisco,” Hall’s surgeon, Milton Waner, told FOXNews.com. “She had some really bad problems at the time. It was a very difficult situation. She had excessive scarring from an aggressive hemangioma.”

Most of her 18 surgeries have been performed at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York.

“She had extensive tissue destruction and we performed several procedures to restore her face back to normalcy,” said Waner, who is co-director of the Vascular Birthmarks Institute of New York at Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Waner said hemangiomas are benign tumors of the stem cells. Although the tumors are not fatal, their complications can be.

“What happens is that the tumor grows very rapidly in the first few years of life and the affected stem cells lose their ability to replicate,” Waner said.

The tumor leaves behind a path of destruction. In worst-case scenarios, they can cause infections and punch holes in blood vessels, causing death from heart failure or excessive bleeding, Waner said.

About 1 out of 10 people has a hemangioma, Waner said. Most do not require treatment. Of those that do, treatment can range from simple laser procedures to complex reconstructive surgeries.

Hall underwent numerous procedures at the hospital over a 14-year period, including facelifts, rhinoplasty, skin grafts, liposuction, dermabrasion, eye surgery and laser surgery. The surgeries cost more than $376,000. Much of the money was donated by people in the U.K., according to the Daily Mail.

With the majority of her medical treatment behind her, Hall, of Corby in Northants, England, is expected to lead a normal life, Waner said. “She looks much, much better now. If you saw her walking on the street, you would never know she had had any problems.”

 

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

We hope all of you have a great Memorial Day Weekend!  Amanda, Delaney, Devyn, Dylan and I are off to the cottage for a picnic with Rhett and Tucker (Delaney’s best friends) and their families.  We are looking forward to a relaxing long weekend, and remembering what Memorial Day is actually all about.

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone, and check back later for a few photos of the past few weeks.  We hope to post our latest photos later tonight.