Complex Craniofacial Surgery: McKinley’s Story

​​​​In 2018, McKinley was in a car accident that left her with a fractured skull and brain injury. After her first surgery and reconstruction didn't take, the family turned to the Boys Town Craniofacial Clinic for help. Our multidisciplinary approach and team of craniofacial surgeons, neurosurgeons among others, gave hope and healing to the family of this bright, fun girl. Watch her story here.

Complex Craniofacial Reconstruction – McKinley's Story

• Transcript

  McKinley's Story - Complex Craniofacial Surgery

  ​On May 11, of 2018 McKinley was in a car accident and from that car accident she has a skull fracture. The skull fracture resulted in a brain injury. Part of her skull needed to be removed and placed into her tummy. Once the skull was in her tummy, she went through rehab and needed to get her skull replaced. That replacement that we first did, did not take. The bone didn't stay good, so we needed to get it done again, so we came to Boys Town for the craniofacial team and they needed to restructure her skull so that the bone could take and fully heal,
  Coming into the craniofacial team, we were dealing with Dr. Jason Miller and Dr. Puccioni together as a team. It's nice to understand what they do differently, how Puccioni will handle everything with the brain and Dr. Miller will handle everything with the skull and so they gave a very clear understanding of who was going to be doing what and that they would both be in the room at the same time with her.
  We have a three-year relationship with Dr. Puccioni going through all of the things that we went through. We really feel that he saved her life and so for us we feel a really special connection to him. He amongst all of the heroes is probably our our top man. McKinley feels comfortable with him and she enjoys having a little relationship with him that gets a little bit silly. It's nice to see them together and as a parent you can't ask for better in such a hard situation.
  The advance care unit, it was extremely special. So the way that they would do rounding and we would step outside of the room and just quietly talk about McKinley, really gave me an opportunity to ask questions. They spoke very quietly, very directly and made eye contact. They kept the situation calm and they were all understanding how difficult it was as a parent. She had her fears but it was very peaceful. When she woke up, she had one-on-one care that kept everything very calm the whole time.
  Dr. Mysore is just an angel, I mean he carries this presence around him that is just so peaceful, which I think speaks for the whole unit and his team and some of the nurse practitioners and doctors that work underneath of him just as good. They come in they do their checks they ask if there's any questions and they do everything peacefully and they do it very soft with McKinley. There just was not fear here, which is the nicest thing after you experience trauma. When they can remove the fear from the situation and focus on the care and the healing, it changes the experience for a parent who's gone through something so difficult.
  Coming here she gets pretty excited. She kind of feels like somewhat of a celebrity because she knows people that are here.
  They've been a great support system, so for her coming to Boys Town is always an exciting thing. Right now she's still in the healing stage from her last surgery. She still has some scabbing that's healing from the incisions and we're just kind of waiting for that bone to take, and they put in some synthetic bone as well so just waiting for all that stuff to kind of come together and see what our next step is. Boys Town was a great experience.