Update on a's cleft palate surgery

[Guest guest]

Hello everybody,

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. There is no doubt in my

mind that they had a lot to do with a's speedy recovery.

Thursday, Dec 4th was one of the toughest days of my life.... I know

that her surgery cannot be compared with open heart or other more

difficult surgery but this is… my baby and just the thought that she

will be under for 3 and a half hours was driving my crazy. I'm pretty

sure you all know what I mean.....

The surgery started at 2 p.m and was done about 5.30. The surgeon

told us that everything went very well (they also had tubes put in

her ears) but was surprised to find out that somehow we were never

told that a was supposed to be weaned of the bottle before

surgery. They told us when we had our assessment in August that we

should introduce the sippy cup without the valve(which we did but she

doesn't like) but they missed to mention the bottle thing…. Because

of this the surgeon figured that she will have a really hard time to

get the fluids she needed by mouth and told us to expect to be in the

hospital a couple more days on top of what they initially thought

(Mon-Tue vs. Sunday).

a was discharged less than …48 hours after surgery. She is my

little miracle and had an outstanding " performance " when it came to

fluid intake. We are using a syringe at it is working (although it

takes us a while). She has no issues with the spoon and for the next

3 weeks we're back to stage 1 baby food. She also has to wear arm

restrains (3-6 weeks) so she can't put anything in her mouth. She has

a lot of stitches in her mouth but she doesn't seem to be bothered by

them (she still takes pain killers).

She is doing really well. You wouldn't even know that she had surgery

3 days ago. They all assumed that it will take her longer to recover

and she proved everybody wrong. She is pretty amazing little girl.

Thank you again.

Anca

Proud Mommy to

Alyssa (Jun 2004)

a (T21) and Tianna (Nov 2007)