Facial Reanimation Surgery April 12th

It's been quite some time since I gave an update. Ethan has continued to make amazing progress. He is now walking without his walker!!! He started this a couple months ago, but now is much more brave and manoeuvres around often without holding onto walls or hands. He is still getting stronger and working on his balance but he has come such a long way. He enjoys his local school a bit more now and is able to handle the coursework much better too. It was a bit of a challenge coming to the new school in WA, but he is finally comfortable and has adjusted to the work load. We have decided to move forward with facial reanimation surgery and his first surgery is right around the corner! It's a pretty extensive surgery which takes approximately eight hours to complete. As many of you are aware, Ethan is pretty much paralysed in the facial area with a little more movement on the left than the right. To keep his eyes lubricated, we give eye drops hourly and insert gel overnight. At Seattle Children's Hospital on April 12th, the surgeons will perform surgery on his right side in an attempt to create a smile for him. They will remove a small muscle from one of his legs and transplant it to his cheek. Obviously, after being paralysed for almost three years, his muscles atrophied enough that they are non-existent. Thus, they will take one from somewhere else and reactivate it. Then, they will access his "shrug your shoulder" nerve from behind his ear, and use that to re-innervate this muscle. It may take a couple months before the first noticeable twitching begins. At that point, if we see that it has taken, we can schedule the same surgery for the opposite side of the face. The surgeries will be about six months apart. In order for Ethan to create a smile, initially, he will shrug his shoulders and when he does he will smile. Overtime, however, his brain should be able to retrain and differentiate between movements. He may also have lid weights placed into his eye lids in concurrence with one of these surgeries. They would also take a small tendon from his wrist and place it under his eyes to create a sling to help with the closing of his eye lids. This may not completely resolve this issue, but should create a lot of relief and require much less lubricant. We are still gathering opinions on whether or not we should move forward with this procedure now or wait a few more years. Eventually, he will have this surgery done it's just a matter of when. That pretty much sums it up. Please keep Ethan in mind next Friday and send him tons of love and positive energy for healing. Like I mentioned, it's a very long and extensive surgery so please pray for our little guy. I will post post-surgery updates. Thank you for reading and your continued support. Love, Nikki