We are home from Emma's surgery! Dr. Chariker worked on her for 65 minutes and said that everything went fine. We go back in 2 weeks for a follow-up. We are hoping (and praying) that it was a successful repair and that there are no leaks that will have to be fixed. He said we will know in 1-2 years if the muscles are attached properly and if her speech will sound normal. In his words, "if not, I have a procedure for that." He took a look at her lip and felt it looked pretty good but he wants to re-evaluate at the 1 year mark (November). He is thinking that he will go back and adjust it a little bit. His comment to Rick and myself, "I want her to look as perfect as possible before starting school." This made us laugh! We are so thankful we waited for both surgeries to be completed here!
So, the dumbed down version of what he did: build a floor for her nose (she had nothing, if you stuck your finger in her nose it would go down to her mouth), attach the muscles that she will need for speech and then connect the palate. He actually had to scrape skin from the bone to help with the repair. Everything he used was already in her mouth, isn't that amazing?!?!?!?!
We feel she is doing well. Last night was her second night and she only woke twice, both times she was do for pain meds, which is why she probably woke up. She took a 3.5 hour nap today and has eaten 3 meals. She has played like normal although she is way crankier than she is normally. Here are some before and after pictures:
Waiting to get started. They didn't start until noon, and she hadn't eaten since the night before. She kept asking to "eat" and was signing for milk. It broke my heart!!!
She was laughing with daddy and I got this "pre" picture of her palate! It was opened like that all the way to her gum line, which also has a split in it.
She asked for her cup as soon as we saw her and would NOT put it down! She drank a whole cup right away!!
Here it is...the after. Looks gross, huh?!?!?! She had egg for breakfast yesterday and last night we thought that yellow stuff was egg. Rick wanted to poke it out and I actually suggested getting tweezers to pull it out. Can you imagine? She would've screamed in pain and we would've screwed up Dr. C's hard work. Thankfully we didn't follow through with either of our stupid plans and realized today that this is NOT egg. I googled a picture online, and the little guy's mouth looked almost exactly like this.
So, we have another lip surgery in our future and a surgery for her gum line when she is around 8-10 years old. The doctor did say that her teeth are lining up nicely, so that was great to hear! Please pray that her palate is fixed and that we don't have to do anything else!
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