Post-op and Team Meeting

Gracie had her post-op appointment with Dr. Mackay today and they also had the rest of the team see her. Nothing like 3 hours in a doctors office with a 3 year old! She has a little infection on her lip. She is on antibiotics so it should clear up soon. Dr. Mackay is so great. He is so good with Grace. He likes her strong will and says she is brilliant. What Mom wouldn't love him? Grace can eat real food again but nothing as hard as a pretzel. With all of the hamburger and hot dogs she missed over the holiday weekend, she is ready to catch up. We will start massaging her lip several times a day help break down scar tissue. I asked how long we do this and they said a year!!! Yikes. Guess she will be learning how to do it herself too. Dr. Mackay will give her 3 months to allow the swelling to go down and to see what progress she makes in speech with her new mouth. If she is not where she should be he will do another palate procedure, pharyngealplasty, to work with the tissue in the back of her throat. This surgery has no major side effects and will not be nearly as big of a deal as what she has just endured. There will be many more surgeries but maybe only 2 more before she is 8. This is a guess. We are not anxious about all of the surgeries ahead but instead thankful for the wonderful care she is receiving and God's grace to deal with anything that comes our way. We will post a picture of the lip revision when the infection clears up. They did a great job on her lip and nose but it is still healing. There will be more cosmetic revisions in the future and they will get things as close to "normal" as possible but they are upfront in telling us that it will always be noticeable. We are confident that we can help her put her cleft lip and palate in perspective throughout her life. We just sang the song in Church that says... "He makes all things work together for my good." If we are going to sing it... we might as well start living and believing it!

8 months home

Hi all. I just wanted to take a break from the all of the medical posts! Gracie has been home for about 8 months. She is doing so well. We just love her to pieces. We have to remind ourselves of her background at times because she has just become part of the family. I caught myself telling the pediatrician how this or that doesn't run in my family. Oh.. that is right... what difference would that make... she is adopted! I think about how God knew all along that she would be in our family. How He saw the day she was born and each day afterward. I pray that in heaven I am able to "rewind the tape" and see each day of her life we missed. I pray that she knows that she was fearfully and wonderfully made and that God has a good plan for her life. She is such a joy. A strong-willed and determined joy! I love that about her. Most days=) She is so helpful. She RUNS to get things or to clean up and she works so diligently. She is so obedient. I think about all the million things that had to fall into place to bring her home and it is truly a miracle. I often think about the fact that we had a choice whether or not to adopt her and it sends chills down my spine. To think we could have missed this! Thank God we didn't.

Still doing well

We are two days post-op and home doing well. Just now starting to see some reduced swelling. She continues to handle the pain like a champ. She has become more aware of the pain in her face but is equally upset about the little mark from the IV and the little scab she got on her foot last week from her shoe rubbing her foot! She hasn't seen herself yet in the mirror. She tells us constantly her boo boo feels better. When we find something she likes to eat or we make her comfortable in some way she says, "I am happy now". She pretty much needs constant care so she is keeping us hopping. She just needs someone to be with her to make sure she is not doing anything unsafe or the other kids are not swinging things or throwing things near her. There has never been a lack of activity in our house... climbing, jumping off the bunk beds, sliding down the stairs on a sleeping bag... so life has ceased as we know it. So far so good. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers!

Surgery Details

We are through our first major surgery!!! It went well. They let me take her back since she did not want to go with the nurse. I held her in the OR while they put a mask on her to put her to sleep. The OR was huge. Like five times my living room and with a dozen people busily getting prepared for Gracie Mei. Oh the care our children receive in this country! From a worldy perspective so few children are so fortunate. Four hours after she went in they called and said she was waking up and we could come back. She was a little scared but calmed down and slept a lot. We moved to our room and she has done great drinking and eating pureed food. Her palate is lengthened and the muscles lined up in a way that will help improve speech. The palate was the most important part so we were thrilled to hear good news about that. He closed most of the hole in her palate which will set her up for a bone graft surgery around age 8. He closed the hole in the base of her nose which will also help greatly with speech since she will not have air escaping from her nose. He said the lip revision was tough. Her repair in China soon after she was born was not a good one. He attached the muscles in her lip so now she can make the "W" sound and pucker up! Watch out boys!!! She has a lot of swelling so it is hard to see what it will look like. They say it was difficult and it will never be perfect but they say it is SO much better. To me, she looks different and I have had to hold the tears back about that. I know it sounds strange but all of you Mommy's out there with kids with clefts know just what I mean=) They gave her nose a little more definition. More nose work as she grows. They continue to say she has more ahead of her but they do not know when because every kid heals differently. As she gets older it also depends on how comfortable she is with the way everything looks and what she wants to have done. She has stitches on her lip and steri strips covering the other stitches aboe her lip. Some swelling. I don't think the kids will be too scared but scared enough to be gentle I hope. As we close out this day I think of all the wonderful care Grace has received and how she has been covered in prayer by so many people who love her. How can I be anything but thankful!

Pray For Gracie Mei!!!

Hi all,
As we wrap up Mother's Day festivities my thoughts turn to Wednesday. Grace will have a 3 hour surgery at Hershey Medical Center. The details are on older posts. Can you join us praying for Gracie Mei and her surgeon, Dr. Mackay? I imagine the surgery will start late morning or early afternoon. I will update the blog when we hear how things go. I am nervous and excited for her.

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!