One week later

Today is one week since Annabel had her surgery. Her palate looks so beautiful. She can slurp and drink from a cup normally and is starting to make some new noises. Today she said "no" and "on". As I have said for weeks she is trying to say things. She needed her palate closed to say it properly. It is soooo exciting for us to hear her talk. On a sad note...her recovery is so slow for her. She has been in a lot of pain. So much so that yesterday we took her to the Dr and he suggested we put her back on the Codeine. I hate to have her so doped up but it is the only way she can get any rest. Mark and I are grateful for the reprieve ourselves. After two full nights and two full days with out any sleep you start to feel like you are headed to the looney bin. Fortunately for us that is not on the agenda this week. We feel much more rested today then we have all week. She also has learned to wiggle her way out of her arm restraints. So we have her clothes in layers to help keep the restraints on and one of us are either holding or playing with her at all times. She is so sneeky and is learning new ways to get things into her mouth. Fortunately we have stopped her each time. I have to brag on my older kids a bit. They have been so helpful during this recovery time. Amber comes in from school each day and takes over for me without me even asking. She is loving that Annabel snuggles in the recliner and sleeps on her lap. Joey has helped in countless ways as well. I am so grateful to have their help. Thanks for your prayers, emails, phone calls and cards. We will keep you posted.

The ups and downs of healing

Annabel has been home from the hospital for three days now. Her palate is healing beautifully. She gave us a peak today and we were so impressed with how it is healing up. We had a few scares including a couple of fevers and yesterday morning when she spit two large pieces of packing out of her mouth. They were stitched in and were suppose to stay there for another two weeks. I called the Surgeon and he said it was not ideal but that it happens some times. It didn't seem to cause any damage, other then creating more pain for her in that area. We took her off of the Codeine because she was so loopy with it and didn't want to eat or drink. When she did drink a little she would throw it up. Once she threw up shortly after eating a few bites of cherry jello. We were so sleep deprived at the time that we both jumped and thought it was bright red blood. When we realized what it was and after we comforted Annabel we laughed so hard at ourselves. So today I started her on straight Tylenol. It took her about 10 hours to get settled in today. I don't know if she was having withdrawals from the codeine (is that possible?) or what, but she was pretty fussy. I am sure she was just in more pain then she was yesterday on a stronger medication. Today I talked to the pediatrician a couple of times and she said it was a good idea to take her off the codeine because she hasn't had a bowl movement since Wednesday. I guess that type of medication constipates you too. I am learning so much. haha So hopefully we might get a surprise tomorrow. She has actually eaten a little bit tonight. Everyone keeps asking me if I am going nuts at home. Not at all. I am really enjoying the bonding time that this recovery is allowing Annabel and I. Of course she favors her mom still. Yeah!!!! I love that. I did however get a break yesterday for a few hours. Mark stayed home with her while I attended church and then headed out of town with a friend for a funeral of a friend of ours, Jeff, who passed away last week of a sudden heart attack. It had to be the most beautiful memorial service I have ever been to. The purpose of the service was to honor Jeff's life and his incredible love for Christ. They told funny stories about him, sang praise and worship songs and we watched a wonderful family video that his sister put together. I felt so uplifted when I left there. Please keep my friend Danielle and her children in your prayers. We were so saddened to hear of their loss. They were married 16 years and had a great love for one another. They were truly best friends. They have a strong love for the Lord and that was very obvious in everything that took place yesterday. Praise God we have Him in our lives. How would we ever make it without Him???

Home for 24 hours

Well we have been home from the hospital for 24 hours. We thought we were going to have to go back today as Annabel has been fighting with fevers off and on today. So we have been monitoring her very closely and forcing a lot of liquids. We tried to take her off of the codine and use only tylenol but we had to go back to it after 4 hours as she was still in too much pain. This has been more much uncomfortable for her then I thought it would be. Poor baby. I am so grateful for medication to ease the pain. She has spent most of the day on my lap asleep. I am loving the cuddle time but I wish it wasn't because she felt bad. She seems to be doing better tonight. We will just have to pray she gets a good night sleep. One day at a time. She will get better. Thank you for your continued prayers.

We are back home

Believe it or not we are back at home. We did not think we would be back tonight because last night was a tough night followed by a tough morning. But by about 2pm she perked right up, wanted food and water and even smiled a bit. So by 4:30 we gave her a dose of Tylenol with Codine and headed home. They offered for us to stay another night but said in their opinion she was doing everything they wanted her to do in order to go home. She was in quite a bit of pain during the night and just very agitated. But it seems to be under control now. She also had a lot of dips in her oxygen levels when she was in a deep sleep, but nothing that concerned them too much. Her swelling has gone down a lot on her lips and she seems much more relaxed. I really did underestimate the amount of pain she was going to be in the first night. I am so glad that is behind her. Now comes the hard part. We have to keep her in restraints until Jan 28th. YUCK!! It will be a tough couple of weeks but as long as I take it one day at a time we will get through just fine. One funny note is that now that her palate is closed....she snores. She use to sleep so quiet that I would shake her a little to make sure she was breathing in the night. I wont have to do that anymore. haha Thanks for all the prayers. God is so good.

Surgery update #2

It is almost 8pm and I now know that my daughter's future will probably be as a professional wrestler. WOW!!!! Is she strong when she is MAD!!! Her surgery went wonderful. Better then we could have hoped for. Her palate is COMPLETELY closed and the surgeon was able to find the muscles in her palate and move them where they needed to be. Which means that we can anticipate her picking up her speach very well as her speach therapy continues. They wheeled her into us around 4pm and she looked so peaceful asleep in the crip. Then it happened. She woke up and turned into this incredibly strong child that would have rather scratched our eyes out then hug us. Oh my. Poor thing was in sooooo much pain. It took about 2 hours and three doses of morphine to finally get her to relax and sleep. She is in Marks arms now and I was able to get her to drink a little apple juice with a syringe. She gave me a smile and smuckered up to kiss me. I told Mark, "She's back". When Annabel gives you a kiss you know you have won her over. So as of now she is still in pain and will be for a couple of days. She has quite a bit of blood coming out her mouth and ears. But that will pass and she will heal. We have only our God in Heaven to thank for allowing the Surgeon to preform such a perfect surgery. He was nervous that he would not be able to close it completely and couldn't really give us a guarantee...but God took care of that. Now our job is to keep her arm restraints on and keep EVERYTHING out of her mouth for the next 4 weeks. It will be tough and I am sure I will have moments of stir craziness....but she is totally worth every bit of it. Thank you God for answering our prayers. Thank you for all of your prayers as well. I did listen to all the messages today on my cell phone but just haven't had a chance to return many of them. Please forgive me if I don't get back to everyone. But I appreciate so much knowing you are all thinking about and praying for Annabel. I will post again tomorrow. Tamara

Annabel is in surgery today

12:30 pm --- Annabel is in surgery right now to have her cleft palate repaired. She has been in there for about 2 1/2 hours. We have had two updates so far and things were great. She has her ear tubes in place and is a little less then half way through the palate repair. She did fantastic this morning considering we woke her up so early and she was not able to eat or drink. She only cried once and that was when they took her temperature. She was afraid of the doctors clothes. After that she was fine and when we said our goodbyes and she left in the arms of the doctor she was smiling. In fact she kept giving him kisses before she went to him. So I guess that was a good sign. He laughed about that. She should be done in about 2-3 more hours. I will post again after she comes out of recovery. God is so good to us as we have a great sense of peace about us right now. Thank you for prayers. Tamara