6th fill up and an "oh dear'

Well this week was progressing quite nicely, friends down to stay and my birthday planned, so we really needed some excitement to keep us on our toes. I decided to take Phoebe to any indoor play area. I have kept her inside most of the time and outings involve the garden or sitting in a shopping trolley. Hardly the excitement a 1 year old craves. So there we were. Phoebe dived straight into the ball pit with two bigger boys (nice move) as soon as we got there. I figured if anything she did hurt too much then she would stop or let me know. She was happily palying and I sat and kept an eye on her while holding Freddie. I decided to go and watch Phoebe come down a slide she had already been down a few times that morning, a bit closer. For some reason she took my words of caution a bit too literally and as soon as she started down the slide she spun round and hung onto the top. Well the result was she took a fairly decent blow to the left expander in her cheek. There were a few tears but the promise of rice wheels and a drink soon placated her. As I sat there though I thought her cheek was not looking very 'inflated' anymore. I gave it a little prod and it did feel rather squishy. Dread slowly spread through me as I figured that she must have burst her cheek expander. I rang the Surgeon and was told to come in straight away that afternoon. The surgeon admitted that the expander was rather soft, but was not deflated completely, which she would have expected had the expander burst. We were due to go for a fill up (number 6) the next day and so we agreed to leave things as they were and assess the next morning. If the expander looked considerably deflated then an emergency op that afternoon would be required, as we would not want to loose any advancement of new skin that the expander had made so far.
That evening as I beat myself up over my stupidity at taking Phoebe to the blinking in-door play area I had a brian wave to look at some old pictures of Phoebe and the cheek expander. I have been trying my best to take weekly pictures and finally found a use for them. On anyalysis the left cheek has never really inflated to any great extent. Whilst Phoebe'e round cheek expander in her right cheek is definitely doing the job the left crescent shaped expander has always looked far less effective. So perhaps we didn't pop the expander earlier in the day. Perhaps the expander has a slow leak. Perhaps Phoebe bumping her cheek just brought it to our attention.
On fill up day the usual drama occurred, despite the local anesthetic on Phoebe's remote ports. Phoebe was not a happy camper at all during fill up but moments later had stopped crying - phew. The surgeon put 10mls in the left cheek expander (which had not shown any over night changes in size) and we agreed to wait a week and see if there was any noteable signs of deflation, as the expander looked very tight straight after inflation (as you would expect). The current plan is to do one more planned fill up next week and then in 2 weeks time remove the round expander and put it in place of the crescent shaped (left cheek) expander. I have quickly learnt that any plans are subject to rapid u-turns, so we will have to see.
Once again, watch this space.
P.S Thanks to Jane in Oz for sending me an e-mail! A big "Boooo" to the rest of you!