A Crown for Kathrina: A Bubbly Little Girl With a Bright Future (Part 6)
December 28, 2005 | Bones and Muscles
A lot has changed in the Goodwin household since the day Kathrina had her surgery and in the months after her crown came off.
She celebrated her fifth birthday and gone back to school, where she danced up a storm.
She was also the guest of honor at a Seattle Children’s Hospital gala.
In some ways the new Kathrina looks much like the old — except from the side. An enhanced CT scan shows the difference.
No one is paying more attention to these changes than Dr. Richard Hopper, Clinical Surgical Director of the Craniofacial Program at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital, who has followed Kathrina’s progress for the last seven months.
“The changes I focus on may be different than somebody who’s met her for the first time would focus on. I look at the position of her cheekbones, in a forward or backward direction, because that’s what will protect her eyes.
And her cheekbones now are protecting her eyes, just in front of her eyes where they need to be. I look at from a side view, how her upper jaw has moved forward because that will let me know how much her airway has opened up,” said Dr. Potter.
“And for her nose, before the surgery, you would push her nose and it would be able to go between her eyes there was no support. There was no support for it, whereas now, her nose protects her eyes. it sticks out a least a good 3/4 of an inch.
So all the things that I look for have been quite dramatic, but you don’t want to change a child’s appearance too much. It can be disturbing to both the child and the family, so I think it’s been a nice balance.”
The Goodwins would agree. Ten months after they first let us follow them every step of the way, we meet again at their home.
Before the surgery, one of the concerns everyone had was would Kathrina’s personality would change, but her family says it hasn’t.
“In fact, because she’s sleeping better at night and she has more energy, we’re seeing her personality that much more personified. It’s much better from that sense,” said Kathrina’s dad, Paul.
“I worried about her appearance changing too much, and it’s different, but she lost the baby look, she now looks like a 5-year-old little girl, which she is. It didn’t really, it changed her appearance but she still looks like Kathrina, if that makes sense,” said Kathrina’s mom, Tamara.
Now that they’re past the worst of it, the Goodwins have had the time and energy to focus on Kathrina’s other challenges, like having her fitted for hearing aids.
“She has to take her hearing aides off for bath time, as soon as she’s out of the bath she wants her hearing aides back in. as soon as she wakes up in the morning she says get my hearing aides, its been a huge difference for her,” said Tamara.
In the future, Kathrina will need more surgery on her nose, orthodontia, speech therapy, but for now that’s all on hold.
“Next is just to let her be a little girl again. It’s time for her not to be spending all her days in the hospital and coming to see us on a regular basis. She can just go out now and enjoy life,” said Dr. Hopper.