Closure Surgery Inbound

 👋🏼 Hi family, friends,

We've been busy with school for K&D and Lindsay, lots of therapies and appointments for Crew, and other family fun. We needed to at least update here quickly though that Crew is scheduled for his closure surgery on Monday October 25th - just a few days away.

We've been told that his plastic surgeon will cut open the skin on his O, as well as taking the incision up toward his sternum. They have to cut him higher than just his omphalocele so that his general surgeon can access his ab muscles and pull them together up at the top by his ribs as well. Once Crew's general surgeon is finished, then plastics will close and make him a belly button.

We decided to go with a belly button after debating it for quite a bit. We've seen many belly buttons fail on O babies. They stretch out as they grow and end up just looking like a bad scar. Plastics told us that those are done by general surgery though, and that what they create end up much better in the end. We'll see. Worst case, Crew has to have a revision surgery in the future, or it can be touched up if he ever gets a hernia that needs repair. A cool thing is that they use some of his O skin to make his belly button, so it won't all be thrown away. It'll be cool for him to show that part of skin and explain how it used to be stretched outside of his body holding his organs!

Some family have told us that they wanted to fast for Crew's surgery, so we're planning on having a fast on Sunday the 24th. Feel free to join, or offer up prayers, send positive energy, etc.. We'll happily accept it all as we rally around Crew.

Some other quick updates are that we took Crew to Disneyland for his first time last week. We had a great time and wish that we were still there! 

We also took Crew to his first pumpkin patch this year, and of course we had to get him another "omphalocele" pumpkin. Cute little guy.