we can see his SKULL update | Urgent Surgery Happening

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]All right, this is not the update that we want to make, but here we are. Kyle has to have another surgery in 9 days time in Arizona.

[00:00:09]Anything you want to say about that?

[00:00:11]>> It's boring.

[00:00:13]>> It's boring. Well, not so boring. To set the scene, we need to go back in time a little bit. So, Kyle had surgery in December of 2025. He had a mini cranottomy and then he had all sorts of complications because he had a cerebral spinal fluid leak from that incision that started about a week and a half out from that surgery.

[00:00:35]>> No, it started like uh >> two weeks out.

[00:00:37]>> No, no, started when I was in the hospital room.

[00:00:40]>> No, it didn't.

[00:00:42]>> Yes, it did.

[00:00:42]>> No, you noticed it when we got back.

[00:00:44]>> Or you didn't tell anyone if it did start in the hospital?

[00:00:47]>> Yes, it started in the hospital and Dr. Smith with some tingles in it.

[00:00:53]>> Oh, okay. So, when Kyle was in the after the surgery in December, he came to check on him, Dr. Smith, and he started vomiting. That's what happened. And when he was vomiting, it ruptured. So, he put more staples in. There was no leaking yet.

[00:01:07]>> Yeah.

[00:01:08]>> But a week and a half out, there was some cerebral spinal fluid leak from that. If you've been here, you kind of know what happens. He ended up having to have an emergency shunt put in. It's been a whole thing. They kept the staples in for way longer than they normally would along with the sutures that were put in during the surgery. And when they took them out, there was like a little spot that looked like, "We're not quite sure. Maybe it's not going to maybe it's not healed fully, but it should be fine." Was it that they thought? And then a week later, once we got back home to Colorado, we noticed that spot was getting larger. And I was like, I think that's a skull I can see.

[00:01:44]And sure enough, it was. We were given a opinion by a plastic surgeon who Kyle's previously seen and he was like, "We're gonna have to do this whole skin flap situation and it seemed a little overwhelming." And Dr. Smith, Kyle's neurosurgeon, was like, "I think let's hold off and like take the least aggressive route." The complication here is that Kyle has radiated skin and radiated skin has a very, very hard time healing. The skin just can't grow back.

[00:02:15]And when there's bone, there's no skin to grow. So, you hope that the sides will kind of close in over the spot. And that was the plan because Kyle started going to the wound care center and it was staying stable at a very small size.

[00:02:29]We maintained his protocol for wound care while we were in Europe. And when we came home, it looked actually slightly smaller than when we had started. But then things took a very fast and hard turn. We were hoping for Kyle to get approved for this placement of granulated placenta. No, granulated umbilical cord where they put it into the little spot and then it helps basically become fertilizer for your tissue to grow back. So, the hope is that it'll help activate the skin around the spot that's not closing and then it'll close up. But Kyle unfortunately had a very negative response to that and his wound is now about three times the size it was when we started. It is very large and we found this out last week.

[00:03:18]He went in to get a check a week after the f third application of this product.

[00:03:23]I don't know the name of it and it had grown even more. And because they were taking care of the wound and I was never having my eyes on it, which was also to my fault and I feel like some shame and guilt that I wasn't like getting up and really looking at it between each change, but I trusted the doctors. We both did and I saw it and it was huge.

[00:03:47]Like there is so much skull exposed.

[00:03:50]Thankfully, nothing is infected, which is the best case scenario in this situation. But we found that out on Monday of last week, and it just was like a serious gut punch of like, okay, like this clearly isn't working. And they were like, yeah, we're going to stop that. We're just going to go back to what you were doing before. But we were like, we want to get another opinion because you also have let it get this big and have been telling us it was stable and it clearly was not stable.

[00:04:15]So, there's some issues with the situation there, which we're going to see them this week and express our frustrations, but we made a call to Dr. Smith, Kyle's neurosurgeon, to just have his eyes and opinion because he looks at skulls all day every day, and we just thought that he might have another perspective. And he's like, "Yeah, you need to get a flap." And thankfully he wants to do a rotational flap and he'll be doing it in partnership with a plastic surgeon who has done hundreds of these with Dr. Smith. The two of them together have done hundreds of these so they are a really good working team which feels really good because we trust Dr. Smith. We feel confident in that. I mean I do. Do you?

[00:04:58]>> Uh yes.

[00:04:59]>> Yeah. And >> we're we're going to see him. So, we're going to Arizona because we were like, we could try to find a plastic surgeon here. We could go through this whole thing, but we trust Dr. Smith, so like, why not go where we know Kyle's going to get the best care? And when we met with the plastic surgeon, when we first saw this spot, they well, we actually just talked to him on the phone. They were telling us that Kyle would need a full like muscular flap. So they take a huge piece of super thick skin from your thigh, per se, and then they attach it to the head, but then they also connect it to your artery. So there's like a direct blood flow. And it's like a 10-hour surgery. You're in the ICU for a week. And we're talking to Dr. Smith.

[00:05:46]I'm like, "Okay, so like just trying to get a sense of like what's the recovery time? What's the length of the surgery?"

[00:05:51]He's like, "Surgery is 2 hours." And I was like, "This seems a little different than what we were told." And I explained what we were told previously. and he was like, "Oh, that's a different thing. I just want to do a rotational flap, which is like the in between like option and if that doesn't work, like the last stitch effort is to do this muscular flap. And if we don't need to do that, I don't want to do that."

[00:06:12]>> Which is truly why we love Dr. Smith.

[00:06:14]Like he really wants to give us the less least invasive option and try that first because why go to the worst case scenario to start? So, they're going to remove skin from the back and pull it forward to cover the spot and then take a skin graft from Kyle's thigh to cover the spot in the back. He's like, "The most painful part is going to be your leg. You're going to feel a lot of pain there, which is what we've been told when he's been prepared for potential skin grafts before." So, that is the plan. We are going to Arizona in 9 days.

[00:06:50]And it's bit of a whirlwind and a crazy turnaround.

[00:06:54]And the other thing that's really great about Dr. Smith doing the surgery is that he's going to get Kyle an MRI the day prior and determine, you know, just as like a scan check. It's supposed to be in June. So, we're a little apprehensive because it could look worse at this stage from the dendric cell therapy treatment that he had. So, we're not sure what to expect cuz they really were like wait 3 months, don't do it in 2 months, which is what we're doing. So, I'm not sure how that's going to go, but we'll have that scan and depending on what he sees, if he sees anything of concern, which hopefully he doesn't, but if he does, and then he also feels like he could operate and fix whatever's going on in there, then he'll already be in the operating room. So he's like I could go in and do whatever needs to be done which is like the best case scenario. So 100% we were like we are going to go to Arizona which means we will be in Arizona for 2 weeks because we're going to stay through till the posttop cuz we don't want any crazy back and forth like we had between December and January where Kyle had complications at home but his care team for the surgery was in Arizona and there was just we're like we're just going to stay there. So that is the plan. Kyle's having a rotational flop surgery done in a week's time from when this video is coming out. He will be in the operating room actually, which is crazy. It's just a little wild because also just to add like more spice because whenever these things happen, it's always a little crazy. My parents come in this Friday.

[00:08:28]They will be here because me and my dad are running our first ever half marathon together. Neither of us have ever run a half marathon. We're running a half marathon on Sunday the 17th. My parents are flying home on the 19th and Dr. Smith's office called and they're like, "We need to have you here on the 18th."

[00:08:47]And we're like, "That's not going to work." So, we are going to go to the airport with my parents on the 19th and go straight from the airport to Kyle to get the preop MRI and then immediately from there go to the preop with the plastic surgeon and then the next morning he will have surgery.

[00:09:06]cuz you know couldn't be spicy enough.

[00:09:08]God >> so it's a lot.

[00:09:12]>> Yeah, >> it's a little terrifying. Just like have to go through this again and like hopefully this will be the solution and his head will finally heal and we aren't going to see his skull anymore.

[00:09:29]But I'm kind of tired of like unexpectedly having to see Dr. Kyle's tired of it, too. Clearly.

[00:09:41]>> So, you want to see Kyle's skull?

[00:09:45]>> If this is going to make you fast forward if you have a weak stomach, we have to change his band-aid. So, I was like, might as well show the people because Hold on.

[00:10:02]All right, give it a go.

[00:10:08]>> Is that tell me when?

[00:10:09]>> Lean forward more.

[00:10:11]That's it. That white stuff that you see is Kyle's skull.

[00:10:17]And that spot was yay big. Literally like the size of my ring.

[00:10:23]That's about how big it was. What that blue stone is. And now it's that big. So that's why we're going to Arizona. And it's going to be 10 and some freaking degrees. And >> yes, >> we feel very overwhelmed, but we also feel overwhelmed with love because we clearly have spent all the money that we've raised for Kyle to go to Germany and we have not been able to refill that well that we tap to make that happen thanks to the generosity of you. And so our friend and neighbor is so generously using their points to get our flights and have also gifted some money to cover our lodging because holy heck are the Airbnbs very expensive which we want to stay in some sort of an apartment to save so we can like just cook and not have to eat out for two weeks cuz that also sounds terrible. So yeah, which if you feel called or able to donate even just $5 to help cover some of this very unexpected cost, it would mean the world to us. But that's the update. We are going to Arizona yet again. I've I was sat down and I think we've been there a total of like six of the 12 months from over the last 2 years. I'm like, I think at some point we're going to have seen Arizona in literally every month, which is was not in my plan. Like, I really wish we had like some money where we could just buy an apartment there and rent it out when we're not there because we feel like we're there all the time, but we're not wealthy enough to do that or even to think about it. So, >> yeah. What do you want to say?

[00:12:01]>> Holy heck. We're going back to Arizona.

[00:12:08]>> Yeah.

[00:12:11]All right, we're going to take you along. It's going to be a whirlwind rest of the month like you never could have believed.

[00:12:21]Really didn't see this one coming, but here we are.

[00:12:26]We'll see you in the next one. That's all I got. We love you and we appreciate your love and your support. It means the world. And if you feel inclined, I will add the GoFundMe link in the description below.

[00:12:41]Bye.