Sunday, July 5, 2009

Surgery #1 is OVER!




Our little Quinn was a trooper on Wednesday. She had her surgery to repair her palate. The surgery took approximately 2 1/2 hours; she had 41 stitches when it was over, her tongue sewn down, and soft casts put on her arms. The tongue thing looked bad, but luckily they took that out the next morning. I guess they do that as an emergency precaution if the throat swells. They can pull on the string that is attached to the tongue to open the airway. The worst thing now is that she is stuck eating either pudding, yogurt, applesauce and the stage one baby foods. (She can't stand them.) Phillip says if she gets hungry enough though, she'll eat them! She's drinking really well though. Lots of chocolate milk, ensure, white milk and water. I made a pot of vegetable soup today, and gave her just the broth from it. She seemed to like it. She is an amazing little girl. She is also very, very tough. There was a little girl from Kenya in the room next to Quinn's. Her name was Joyce and she was one. She was having her palate and lip repaired because they had to get back to Kenya. She is being adopted by an American doctor and his wife who are living in Kenya. We walked by and Quinn was upset that Joyce was crying, so she gave her a little, pink stuffed poodle. Joyce smiled at Quinn. It was all really touching. There was also a little girl in our unit who went into a Code Blue emergency and died. Whithin 20 seconds there must have been 25 staff members there working on her. The miracle is that she came back. It was truly a miracle. She lived!! I will never forget that moment..The staff was truly amazing!

So now, we will have a lip repair next summer, and then she's all done!! WooHoo!! I am so thankful this beautiful little girl is in our lives. She has been so good for her siblings and her siblings have been so very good for her! My family is so blessed and thankful!