Seeing Is Believing...

First of all, before I show you what I can hardly wait for you to see, I want to tell you a little story...

When Zac was about a month and a half old, we went to see our first pediatric dermatologist.  The wait to see this specialist was the longest wait of our lives.  We tried and tried to get in earlier, but they did not seem very concerned with Zac's skin condition...at least not enough for it to warrant squeezing him in their busy schedule.  Upon visiting our first pediatric dermatologist, he examined Zac and we asked some questions regarding satellites and removal.  He basically told us that it was possible to remove some of Zac's smaller satellites but it would leave extensive scarring.  So...he told us "you'll have to decide which is worse...a substantial scar - or a big hairy nevus".  REALLY??, we thought.  Isn't this 2010?  He then recommended that we look into a 'paravertebral stripping'...what the heck is this...yeah, we never quite understood it either but it basically has to do with stripping only the nevus skin over the spine on the back.  So...let me get this straight...it isn't bad enough that he has a big hairy speckled birthmark on his back...but let's strip ONLY the skin over the spine??  How do you even do something like that??

Well...next thing you know, we found Dr. Bruce Bauer in Chicago (and have since found Dr. Harper Price...our fabulous Pediatric Dermatologist) and GUESS WHAT.....after removing the hairy, puffy nevus on Zac's arm...here is what we have....

Arm Before

Arm After

Hmmm....where's the unsightly scar???  I have NO IDEA...LOL  This picture is fresh after I removed the stitches today.  It is absolutely beautiful and we are so happy with the results.  Captain Happy didn't even wince.
Thank you Dr. Bauer!!  And Praise God for such remarkable results and resilience in our little guy.

Drum Roll....

Our beautiful nurse, Mim - We luv her

With the help of our beautiful nurse Mim we were able to go into Dr. Bauer's office the day after the surgery for a clean set of dressings and to see Dr. Bauer's handiwork.  I must say I was so very excited to see the results.  I want to remind you that this process is exactly that...a 'process'.  The journey is not over and once we are done with the few expansions Zac has left, we will end up with far less incision/scarring.  Plus, the little ones heal so much better than us adults.  I'll tell you that when I first saw the results of another friend's child, I thought to myself "oh, my...the incision is frankenstein-like...but please remember that the incision is placed on Nevus skin because it will be removed as the future Nevus is removed.  

Now!

January before any surgeries

You can really see the difference between the normal ivory skin, the light brown Nevus skin (which was part of the skin that was expanded) and the hairy, speckled Nevus skin.  Dr. Bauer ended up keeping part of the lighter Nevus skin that we expanded because it was better looking than the Nevus on the far right.

I know it makes you wince a little and it looks a little painful but this little superhero did so well!!  We did not spend the night in the hospital and he was his usual Captain Happy-self in the morning with just a little help from Motrin and Tylenol :)  He even got the drain out on Monday before we headed home from Chicago and Miss Mim said that his incisions looked just great!  We even got to meet a fellow Nevus-friend in the hospital on the day of the surgery thanks to the NOI Support Group!

Dr. Bauer is A-MAZING!  Thank you for all your prayers we are looking forward  to not worrying about filling tissue expanders for the next four months :)  Next up....Round 2 Expansion in August!!  Woot, woot!