Smelling Like A Rose

It wasn't well publicized on our social media accounts, so I'm sure it came as a surprise when Mike announced on Thursday, December 31st that Nicholas was at the hospital for a surgery. It was an incredibly minor surgery compared to the others that he's had, and so we just didn't post about it, I guess.

When Nicholas was born, we noticed that he had a cute little nose that ended in a cute little point. We speculated where that had come from, because as far as we knew, nobody in either family had a nose like that. We thought little of it going forward because, obviously, we had bigger issues at hand.

As Nicholas got older, the point began to round out and become more prominent. His pediatrician remarked on it, and said he believed it was a cyst in his nose. The consensus was to watch and wait. If we made it to his 9 month appointment without the cyst dissolving, he would refer Nicholas to a plastic surgeon and we could see what that doctor thought.

Nicholas's 9 month checkup came and the spot was not only bigger than ever, but now appeared to be straining against the skin of the nose. 

The pediatrician agreed with us that it was time to move forward with another opinion and a referral to the plastic surgeon was made. I took Nicholas to the initial appointment with the doctor and he agreed that it was likely a cyst but he wanted it removed sooner than later because he was concerned the cyst would run out of growth room and burst. At that point, it would become an emergency situation and could possibly become infected. The surgery scheduler was unable to schedule anything in January and the doctor wanted it done before February so an adult patient was bumped to a later time in the schedule on December 31st and Nicholas was given the first slot in the surgeon's operating schedule.

We became worried as time grew closer because Nicholas seemed to pick up a slight cold and was stuffed up. He also had an incident with his helmet where a significantly warmer than usual December (temps in the 80s!!!) made for a very sweaty Nicholas and he ended up getting either a fungal rash or contact dermatitis (the prescribed cream treated both so the doctor didn't worry about testing) on the back of his skull. We thought this may postpone the surgery, but luckily at his pre-op visit the doctor gave us the green light.

Nicholas and Mike arrived at the hospital at the incredibly early hour of 5 a.m. on December 31st. I stayed home with Zachary and Emily because we figured it would be easier for them to be home rather than stuck in a hospital waiting room for hours. Zachary woke up when Mike was leaving for the hospital and I was saying goodbye, so he got to say goodbye too and then cried because he missed Nicholas. Nicholas was brought back quickly and was taken to surgery right at 7:30. The doctor assured Mike it was a simple outpatient procedure and that he would likely be done in 30-40 minutes.

An hour and a half went by before the doctor came back out. As it turns out, the cyst was deeper than the doctor had initially thought, so he had to go deeper than he was planning. Also, once the cyst was removed, they found that the cyst had separated the cartilage that had made up the end of Nicholas's nose, so his nose essentially collapsed once the cyst was out. This required the surgeon to stitch three layers of 10 stitches each to rebuild Nicholas's nose. Then he had to place 8 stitches on the outside of the nose to close the incision (he had thought he would need 2-3 stitches before going in).

The doctor told Mike that he was sure it was just a standard cyst and that he felt confident that he had removed it all, but that it was always possible a small piece was left behind so we needed to watch and see him again if it appeared to be growing again. The cyst has been sent off to the lab to be tested and make sure that it is nothing else. Hopefully we will have the results of that test when Nicholas goes to his post-op appointment on Wednesday and gets his external stitches removed.

Hopefully we can make 2016 the year of the surgery free Nicholas!