Anna's last day with those darn arm braces

Anna has definitely made peace with Abby

We're still alive here in the Smart home. But sometimes, I think just barely.

Anna has hit the two week mark of wearing her arm braces.  And since today was her last day wearing her braces, I thought I'd post a few arm brace pictures.  It also marks the end of the pajama period.  Ms. Houdini can get out of most of her other shirts so she's been wearing pajamas for two weeks - sometimes with packing tape accents around the Velcro (but don't tell my social worker).

did I also mention she loves to climb on anything and everything?

I think she's done fabulously with them on.  I think she's much more frustrated with eating pureed baby food than wearing arm braces.  Did I mention this girl loves to eat?  And that pureed stuff isn't cutting it for this little girl.  Cranky doesn't begin to describe her at mealtime.

She and Ryan are still fighting constantly.  It is enough to drive me insane.  We moved the furniture around to create what we call a "fort" which sounds fun to Ryan, but it really is a furniture cage to keep either Ryan in/Anna out or Anna in/Ryan out.  It works until Anna tries to get in and Ryan hits her on the head.

 
 
 

post surgery

It feels like Anna's surgery was so long ago but it's only been one week.  Tony took her to her one-week follow up visit with the doctor and he said everything looks great, which is a huge relief.  I used to have another picture of her sleeping the night of her surgery, but every time I looked at it, it made me sad, so I took it off this posting.




Anna with the tube in her nose and the stitch in her tongue - you can see the thread from her mouth to her cheek.

The surgery itself went very well.  If you're ever in need of plastic surgery, I have the doctor for you.  He is amazing and everyone I've talked to says the same thing.  He said that before he started the surgery, he read a bit from Anna's file to everyone in the operating room.  He said that everyone heard her story and just melted.  How is THAT for a caring doctor? 


Tony and I were in the hospital waiting for about 6 hours total with pre-op.  It was a long day and I was a bit anxious even knowing she was in capable hands.  When they called me to post-op, I could hear her crying (actually screaming) from down the hall.  She was extremely distressed and was thrashing about which is not what you want a post-operative patient to be doing.  With tears running down my cheeks, another nurse and I held down my daughter as best we could while I talked to her.  Nothing was working and they ended up giving her some morphine.  She started calming down and so I held out my arms to her, she held her arms up to me, I picked her up and she just melted in my lap and fell asleep.



Anna the next morning - no tube, no stitch!


I thought about all she's been through in her short eighteen months and it broke my heart for the hundredth time.  In addition to the hard palate prosthetic and the soft palate repair, they put a tube in her nose to make sure her airway passage remained open and a stitch in the front of her tongue with the string attached and glued to her cheek just in case her tongue rolled back and blocked her passage way.  ouch.

But after the initial disorientation after waking up from her surgery, she was ok.  In fact, she was great.  She drank some water and ate some applesauce and yogurt that night and even more the next day (did I mention that this girl loves to eat?!).  They said she might have trouble eating, but I never doubted my Anna.

Anyway, around mid-day last Wednesday they discharged us and we were home by 2pm.  Since then, she's been doing great.  She hates those arm braces, yet, when I go to put them back on her arms (after bathing or exercising), she will hold her arms out to me so I can put them back on.

So all in all, she's doing great.  She can sort of hold her bottle, but she ends up pushing it hard into her mouth so I don't let her feed herself.  She hates this and has regular fits, but she is getting used to it. 

But as you can see, no arm brace is going to keep this little girl from climbing and her other shenanigans!

surgery





Anna in her hospital pj's

Tony and I are sitting in the waiting room while little Anna has tubes put in her ears and then has her cleft palate repaired.  We are at Primary Children's Hospital and are fortunate to have some of the best medical care in the world.  I've been in Peru assisting doctors and dentists as they cared for the very poor who don't have medical and dental care and I know how fortunate we are.  And I am grateful.



Waiting room fish tank!

But still, it broke my heart when they carried her away.  And a few minutes ago, Tony looked at me and said, our little girl is under the knife right now.  Not what a mommy wants to hear.

They said her surgery will be about 4 hours.  And they said that she will be pretty grumpy today.  I'll be staying overnight with her in the hospital so sounds like it will be great fun.  She hasn't eaten anything since dinner last night and hasn't had any liquids since 9am this morning (they took her at about 1:30pm) so she was pretty grumpy to begin with!
 




The pre-op room had great toys!

The saddest part of all will be she is going to have arm braces on both arms so she can't bend her arms and touch her mouth.  And she will have those arm braces on for TWO weeks.  Shortly after she gets those braces off, her mommy will be traveling and so she is going to feel abandoned for a week (hopefully Skype will help alleviate that abandonment feeling).

So if you feel so inclined  to keep praying for our little Anna, we would be so appreciative!