Van Gogh

That is what we are calling Kyle these days.  Not for his artistic abilities, but for the absence of his left ear.  Kyle was diagnosed with melanoma last Monday.  He has had eight surgeries, including the beginning of the reconstruction of his ear.  It has been a crazy two weeks of experiencing "groundhogs day."  Each morning, we wait for the call to see if "they got it all" and when they didn't, he would head into the clinic and get more removed.

It all starting from me telling Kyle, "that spot on your ear looks weird, you should get that checked out."  Luckily he listened.  He has been such a trooper and has been so positive (I have been a little bit of a wreck), but at the end of the day we have a good report.  They are pretty sure they got it all and he is starting the reconstruction of his ear.  These pictures don't really do it justice (Kyle was not pleased to have me take these photos).  Since this blog is a documentation of our lives (eventually gets turned into books), I figured we couldn't leave this out as it has been a bit of a wake up call for us. 

It was fascinating hearing how the plastic surgeon was going to put his ear back together.  They pinned the remainder of his ear to his neck, slit the skin on the neck and pulled it over the ear.  This will hopefully regenerate the blood vessels over the next three weeks.  Then, Kyle will go back for the second round and they will re-build his ear with tissue from his neck and shoulder. 

Looks pretty normal - but so weird that the skin attached to his ear is from his neck/scalp being stretched over his ear.