We have known for a while that Jayse would have one last surgery. We go to a clinic every year and meet with all the specialists. At his appointment a couple of years ago they told us, he’d need one more surgery. They wanted to wait until he was older to make sure his face was mostly done growing. It’s called a Septorhinoplasty. It would help him breath better by fixing his septum and while in there they would reconstruct his nose if he wanted. Jayse elected to have some work done on his nose. He wanted a bump removed on the bridge and the tip of his nose to have a more pointed shape.

At his last appointment in the fall they said he was ready, he wanted to wait until after winter – at the time he thought he would snowboard this year, which he hasn’t. He knew he couldn’t play contact sports for 4 months after the surgery so he wanted to do it before football (now he might not play anyway). Doing in the spring we knew he’d miss rugby but he was ok with that.

At the beginning of the year I called his surgeon to get on the schedule – thinking they’d be months out and expected it to be sometime in March or April. Turns out they had a cancelation and could get in him Jan. 3oth – which was only a few weeks away! I snagged the appointment figuring the sooner the better.

On the day of his surgery, him, Greg and I went down to St. Lukes. Feels like home away from home there. We know the routine, where to go and even some of the staff! The nurse that checked us into the surgery waiting room was the same one that has taken his measurements for 2 other surgeries. While we were waiting I showed the nurse the pictures of him measuring Jayse and he confirmed it was him. He said I should of told him earlier and he would of taken a picture with Jayse again but Jayse had already gone to surgery – dang it!

Once we were called back to the room before surgery, Jayse got ready in his gown – Greg helped him tie it up. Then we just waited. The anesthesiologist comes in asks us questions and then they get him ready with an IV. The surgeon comes in and checks in and then we are about ready. Jayse remembers the procedure and so do we so we don’t have a lot of questions. Once they wheel him away Greg and I go back to the waiting room.

His surgery was scheduled for 4 hours. Greg and I went to the cafeteria to grab some lunch to bring back to the waiting room.

Once we hit the 4 hour mark I was expecting to be hearing from the staff soon. I started to get worried when it was going long – which always seems the case. They finally came and got us and moved us to the surgeon conference room.

The surgeon came out to talk with us – it took longer because of course it was worse then they thought. The septum was bunched up and covering a good portion of Jayse’s left airway. He had to do more work then he thought. Then he took some of the cartlidge that he had removed from the septum and used it to give Jayse more of a tip on his nose. Overall, thought everything went as planned and Jayse was doing good.

We got to go back and see him a bit later in recovery. He was already away and drinking. It was probably the easiest recovery he’s ever had. No nausea and he was able to drink and get up and get dressed fairly quickly. We were done and out by the afternoon.

He was starving and was only supposed to eat something soft so we stopped and got him a milk shake.

He had to have packaging and the bandages on his nose for 7 days. We had a follow up appointment a week later when they removed it all. That week was torture for him. He couldn’t breath very well. His throat was getting sore and his lips chapped. He couldn’t sleep very well because he couldn’t breath.

He was so relieved when the week was up. Once the packing was out he couldn’t believe how good he could breath. He said it was a lot different – much better then before. We can’t tell about the shape of his nose yet. It is still swollen and hard. We have final appointment in a couple of months – when it should be pretty close to normal again.

Can’t believe he’s going to graduate from the cleft clinic and this was our last surgery! What a relief.

Greg making Jayse laugh while we wait because he needed to use the bathroom but didn’t want to…

Got a lot of before photos of his nose. I’ll post some afters when we go to his last appointment.

Jayse said the first thing he thought when he woke up was that this owl was flipping him off. Gotta admit when you first look at it, kinda looks like that.