Well, Cooper had his hat taken off a few days after surgery and has been recovering well. Unfortunately, we had a bump in the road - and, thankfully although it was frightening, he is doing just fine now.
Tonight we had a wonderful time at my cousins home. We got to spend time with many family members we don't get to see often. Family from near and far... Arizona and even Japan!
We got home and quickly wanted to get the kids to bed - it was well past their bedtime. Dave took the girls and I was in charge of Cooper. I sat in the glider and gave Cooper a bottle - the usual drill. I noticed he needed a diaper change, so took care of that stinky mess and back to the bottle we went. Quickly, he got fussy - and started screaming. I took out the bottle and tried it again - thinking he is tired or not wanting it or ... just not sure what's going on. The room was dark, so I could not see anything. I tried to give him his bottle again and he screamed again - and then I felt a strange feeling on my elbow. His head was resting on my elbow and all of a sudden it did not feel "normal". I saw a bump from the very limited light in the room and screamed for Dave. He came in the room and I told him to turn on the light... He did and boy did we see a bump. More than a bump, it looked like he had a golf ball under his skin (literally that size). I passed him to Dave and called 911. He ran to get help from the neighbors. By this time there were 2 bumps that were merging into one. Probably about 3 inches long - stuck out like a golf ball - looked like something out of this world. Something I never want to see again.
I rode in the ambulance with Cooper while Dave drove behind so we could get home from the hospital. My parents met us at the hospital, where Cooper had an MRI to ensure he was no longer bleeding internally. The ER doc spoke with Coop's surgeon and she said to make sure the MRI showed no bleeding and give some time for the bump to go down. All in all, we were there about 3 hours - and then were sent home once the bump got a bit smaller.
The next day I was back at the doctors office so she could check him out. She has only seen this twice in her 20 years as a surgeon. Normally, it would have happened within 48 hours of surgery - not 7 days which is why he was wearing his funny bandage hat. This doesn't normally happen at all but when it occasionally does happen in the first 48 hours, the hat keeps everything in place and doesn't let things bulge out like this.
So what everyone believes happened is that Coop may have strained a bit with that last diaper and popped a blood vessel that was still healing from the surgery. The internal bleeding caused these bulges that stretched the skin. It was absolutely amazing (looking back at it now) and scary (at the time) how much the bumps protruded from his head and how quickly. It was like an alien was trying to climb out of the back of his head. We didn't take any pictures because we were just too frightened and focused on what was going on, and if you hadn't seen this I don't think words can really convey how this reshaped his whole head in a matter of minutes.
Thankfully, he is fine. His head could use a little reshaping, but time will heal it and get it back to "normal" in the next few days.
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