Well it was quite an adventure to just make it to the surgery! Not sure how many of you have heard about this little snow storm we have going on here in Atlanta but it has really pretty much shut down the entire city! After much speculation as to whether or not the surgery would even take place, I am happy to report that the surgeon and the Hawley family made it safely to Scottish Rite Children's Hospital and surgery went on as scheduled on Monday. Alex did great during surgery and is recovering well! She wore her now famous stocking cap into the operating room-my girl is truly an original! Thank you for all the prayers!
Okay, for those of you wanting more info on what they did here you go- a Osteotomy Maxillary Graft, Bone Alveolar, and Nasal Reconstruction with Conchal Graft. In lay people language they took a piece of her left hip bone and inserted a plate in her upper gum to stimulate the growth of her upper gum bone (Alveolar). In addition to her cleft lip she also had a cleft of the gum bone (alveolar) that was causing a lot of problems. As she starts to get her permenant teeth, these teeth need a place to go, so they had to realine her gum bone in hopes of creating a better enviornment for those teeth to come into. They also took some of her ear cartlidge to do some reconstructive work on her nose.
Alex looks pretty good. Her ear is bruised and face swollen and she has a little bandage over her nose but not near as bad a I was anticipating. The hip and ear where she has some sutures are not bothering her at all. Her nose is sore and really hurts as her pain medicine begins to wear off. She still has 2 IVs in so she has those little boards on both of her arms- those are probably the most annoying to her at this point. Yesterday was an all liquid diet but today she is on a soft diet. Alex ate some scrambled eggs and bannana pudding for breakfast so we are hopeful she continues to eat well. If she does eat for the rest of the day then we should be release tommorrow. We are all ready to go home! That is of course if the weather cooperates!
That leads us to the weather! Oh-my! After the snow we got Sun-Mon the roads are a mess! Many parts of the interstates have been shut down and there is ice everywhere! The hospital staff has been really great-Many have been here since Sunday and sleeping at the hospital after their shift is over. They cancelled all non emergency surgeries today as no one can get to the hospital. Many extras within the hospital are shut down- no coffee shop, gift shop, etc. as staff cannot get to the hospital. The cafeteria is somewhat sparse on offerings as it is the only place around to get food. Needless to say the snow storm has added an element of uncertainity to this whole surgery experience. It's never dull with us so surgery in the middle of a snow storm is just about right! Thanks for all the prayers! I'll let you know once we make it home!
