Third surgery postponed

Sorry about the delay! I know at least a few of you come back here from time to time to check in on Ani’s progress, and some of you may have realized that her third surgery should have been scheduled some time over the summer.

Well, we did go back for Ani’s followup at the beginning of the summer and we (the doctors and Ani’s parents) decided that she wasn’t yet ready for another go.  While the scar from her second surgery back in December had healed as well as could be expected, the skin around her cheek hasn’t yet stretched out enough to leave enough extra for another operation.

So, the plan now is to give Ani another 6 months for the skin to stretch and to plan on a followup visit with the team in Seattle around Christmas time.  If things look good at that point, we’ll probably be looking at the third (and, quite possibly, final) surgery at the beginning of 2010.

We’re all a little disappointed to have to wait, but this is definitely for the best.  Even though we’d hoped to have all the operations in the bag by the time she starts kindergarten (TOMORROW!) and Anikka herself wants the rest of the nevus gone, it’s better to wait for her skin to stretch out enough than to rush into things and risk severe deformation of her facial features.