The Goodwins

Ella still hasn’t calmed down much.  She got about an hour or two of sleep between I and Bonnie holding her.  She woke up in a tizzy and cried on and off for pretty much two hours.  The nurse brought over some Codine, and unfortunately only had enough for Ella, so Bonnie and I will have to muddle through. Ella started to calm down a bit but still breaks out in tears periodically.

It looks like Ella’s next expansion round won’t start until next year, probably Feb. or March, but we’ll know more in a couple of weeks when Ella’ sutures will be removed.

Looks like there’s a good chance we’re staying here over night, but we probably won’t know that for sure for a couple more hours

We are with Ella in the post op area.  She’s extremely ticked off right now.  It’s hard, as she’s hardly ever mad.  But she’s definately mad now.

We will see how she does through the afternoon to see if we will take her home today or stay overnight in the hospital and head home tomorrow.

However, right now we are taking turns holding her.  As I type she’s finally starting to fall asleep in Bonnie’s arms.

Thanks again for your continued prayers.  We’ll keep you updated.

We also have pictures up of her after Post Op at ellagoodwin.com.

The surgeon tells us she did very well.  He was able to get a good chunk of the nevus, but is assuming that the next round of expansion will require two expanders due to the orientation of her mole (it’s right up against her ear) and the desire to keep the hair orientation as normal as possible.

We are heading to see her now.

We haven’t forgotten to update you…  We’re just still waiting…

When talking to the doctor this morning before Ella’s surgery, he seemed to think he’s not likely to put the front expander in this surgery.  Most likely we’d wait for that until early next year to allow everything to stabalize and not run up against the holidays.  This is good and bad news.  It would be nice to allow Ella to get back into a routine and be able to play with her friends, but it’d also be nice just to get this part of her life (and ours) over with and to move on to the next part!

Ella went into surgery around 7:30 CDT.  We expect to hear something around 9:00 CDT.