Unscheduled removal of stent

Caitlin had a little incident this afternoon: while goofing around on the bed after her nap, she wound up knocking part of the stent out of her nose. After spending over a half hour on the phone trying to get the number of the on-call surgeon, then multiple back-and-forth calls between her, Caitlin's surgeon and myself, it was determined that it needed to come out.

We are up in LA celebrating Caitlin's birthday with a trip to Disneyland and therefore unable to get down to see the surgeon, so my mom and I got to do it ourselves. My mom held Caitlin down while I stuck scissors up Caitlin's nose and snipped the last stitch that was holding the rest of the stent in. Not exactly how we had planned to spend our evening, but now we can get a real look at her amazing new nose!Caitlin is very proud of her new nose; she keeps telling me how much she likes it! (She also keeps announcing "Tube all gone!")

Just in time for her birthday, too- this may have been the best gift that I could have given her (as far as making her happy and comfortable, that is; not necessarily for the benefit of her nose, since the stent was supposed to stay in until next Thursday...)