It's an ear!

We saw the doctor this morning and he 'opened the present'. I will admit it was very odd to see this ear on my son's head, and very exciting at the same time. All things considered it looked great. A little Frankenstienish due to the stitches and the swelling. It is definitely ear shaped, it is just swollen and bruised. He has three different areas of skin that were stitched together; his original little ear, a skin graft from his head and another one from his groin area. He will have to continue to wear the cup over his ear for two more weeks. Then he has a special molded form he will wear at night for six more weeks. Robby's skin graft on his head actually looked worse than the ear. It was a rectangle slightly bigger than a deck of cards. The doctor said that area was a single layer graft. The best way to describe it would be it is similar to a skinned knee where just the top couple layers of skin are gone. In other words the graft looked like a bloody mess. Not actively bleeding, but fairly bright red from having the dressing removed and the area washed. Because it was only the top layer, there will be no trouble with the hair growing back. Actually you could see a fresh growth of hair in the graft area. Robby was excited to see his ear. He says it looks kind of gross and dirty. He does understand that it will look better as time goes by.
Then we began the journey home. As I write this we are on the airplane and anxiously awaiting landing in Columbus. Robby missed his sister Rachael, who is also his best friend. We are both looking forward to seeing everyone and spending time with them. I will post more picutes this weekend.