handsful

Lainey already has a hobby…daddy downhill skiing! (great view of her cleft, eh?)

As of today, Lainey has had all of her in-office doctor visits required before her palate surgery can be scheduled. Here’s the low-down on those visits…

ENT: Lainey has fluid in both ears, and will most likely need tubes placed during the palate surgery. I say most likely because they weren’t able to repeat the tympanogram (first one done during the clinic appt on 3/20) during the ENT visit, so they will do that prior to surgery and if it shows she still needs them, they will place the tubes.

Plastic Surgeon: The surgeon wants to close Lainey’s entire palate in one surgery, if possible. He’ll do that by making incisions on both sides of the cleft, and pulling the muscle flaps over the cleft, closing it. At least, that’s the way I’m understanding it! There will still be a gap between the front of the palate and her clefted gumline. That’s where the dentist comes in…

Dentist: She was a superstar patient for the dentist, allowing them to clean and polish her teeth and get great views of her gumline and teeth. She has 2 teeth on the left side (cleft side) and 4 (all that should be there) on the right. Her 2 year molars aren’t in yet. He’ll do x-rays in 6 months to see what permanent teeth she has, and the timing of her gumline surgery will depend on what he finds. They will, sometime between the age of about 4-10, take bone from her hip and re-build her gumline where the cleft is. So, the dentist doesn’t need to be involved in her palate surgery.

Now, we wait to hear from the surgery coordinator. Our clinic coordinator is sending us a packet of info on what to expect both before, during, and after surgery. Two things I’m anxious about are feeding her for those 3 weeks after surgery AND keeping her hands out of her mouth. She’ll be on various levels of a liquid diet, fed either with a syringe and tube contraption of regular cup (NO sippy cups!). She’ll wear devices on her arms that are referred to as “no-nos” to keep her arms in a straight position. The ones we’ll use can be seen here, www.snugglewraps.com.

Here are a couple more pics :)

Another view of her trick…work those abs, girl!!

We were visited by some mallard ducks the other day.

Look at this adorable bow holder and bows! My ladybug group held a hairbow swap, and Kim sent this…couldn’t believe how many bows there were and she made the holder!