Surgery May 12

Gracie will have her big surgery on May 12. We went to Hershey last Friday for a pre-op appointment. The surgeon continues to put me at ease. He has done this so many times. There are other posts that go into detail but basically they will close a hole that is in her nose, attach muscles in her upper lip so she can move it, clean up scarring, and most importantly lengthen her palate. Her uvula (hangy thing) in her throat and surrounding tissues are so far from the back of her throat that she cannot speak clearly. Lengthening the palate will help tremendously. Later they will probably do another surgery to work on some of the surrounding tissues in the back of her throat. She has a great deal of air escape from the hole in her palate and nose so closing the nose and some of the hole in the palate will really help with that. Kids respond very differently to this kind of surgery. Most do very well. I am sure she will do much better than her Mother;) She must go 6 weeks with only soft food so that will be tough and at first she will need around the clock care. I hear many parents say that it is a time of bonding because you are with them 24-7 and providing for their every need. I look forward to that but I am concerned about getting my Cole, Julia, Cody time in too. I am sure they will enjoy some extra time with grandparents and friends and certainly extra time in front of the tv! We will be after you all to be praying as it gets closer.

Dental Surgery

I am late posting this info. but Grace had dental surgery. It all happened so quickly and was such an answer to prayer. Her insurance kicked in on a Monday which allowed us to make a desperate plea for the insurance company to allow us to use the dentist we wanted to use. They said yes on Tuesday and our dentist office had a cancellation and got us operating room time on Friday of that week! It all had to happen quickly because it needed to be done at least 6 weeks before palate surgery. Turns out the lady at the dentist office that worked so hard to make it all happen is my friend from high school's Mom. Insurance covered the surgery completely!!! It was a very expensive procedure. Basically they just took out all of the decay and put in a lot of metal. They had to pull one tooth. It healed well. She did great with anesthesia and didn't need pain meds afterward. PTL!