Chun Le has had an amazingly quick recovery for which we are so grateful! She was off pain meds pretty much entirely by the time we came home from the hospital the day after surgery. We did give her a dose of infant's tylenol at night maybe the first two nights home just to be sure she could sleep at night comfortably with the cold that she had picked up. That was the most difficult part about her recovery I think...getting a cold! Since her upper lip area was still quite tender for about the first full week it was pretty much impossible to wipe her drippy nose and snots that came out after she sneezed. So, in addition to the greasy look under her nose due to the neosporin ointment to protect against infection, she had bugers that could not be fully wiped away. Lovely thought...sorry we don't have any photos to share of that. :) She was waking up several times each night on most nights this past week but it was because she was so stuffed up---did not seem to be surgery related at all. As her congestion slowly gets better, she is waking up less during the night.
Just yesterday for the first time (8 days post surgery) we saw her back to smiling and laughing lots. We think the tender, sore lip kept her from doing big smiles for several days. Stretching the upper lip taught in order to smile had to be painful for awhile, but now we have our very happy and smiley little girl back. Here is the best smile shot I was able to capture--she kept looking away or running away from me whenever I got the camera out. She thinks that is a fun game to play. :)
The kids all wore their Chinese "family" T shirts today so I wanted to share this one of all three of our great kiddos!
One final note...I forgot to mention this in our blog during our hospital stay...pretty much every nurse on every shift kept commenting to us about what a wonderful patient Chun Le was. They were amazed at how well she did during any testing or procedures or checks they had to make all throughout the day and night we were there. One of them said that all the nurses at the station just kept talking about her and how "lucky" we are to have her. They are soooo right on---we are so blessed (we know it is God's sovereign placement and not just "luck") to have Chun Le in our family. Fairly often we hear people say to us that Chun Le is "lucky" to have us, but honestly we think we are the blessed ones to have her!
Sounds like things went really well. She looks beautiful! I totally understand what you wrote though about just taking in her sweet cleft smile. I cried as I read that post. I remember doing the same thing with my sweet Lindsey. I just really felt that adorable cleft was what brought her to us in some strange way. I found it really endearing and was going to miss that part of who she was. Congrats on getting through one more huge hurdle. Isn't Dr. Daw wonderful!
ReplyDeleteWe do agree, Bethany, that Dr. Daw is a very talented cosmetic surgeon! I have found that you and other moms of cleft kids really do understand that somewhat irrational thinking in the days pre-surgery. I remember reading a blog from another mom the morning of her daughter's surgery (this was before we met Chun Le) and wondered how she could feel sentimental/sad about the wonderful changes that the surgery was going to bring for her daughter---now I get it! :) I think you have to be in our shoes to completely understand the emotions behind it all. :) I must say that of course there are no regrets to having the surgery done, but it was a hard thing to prepare for emotionally.
ReplyDeleteChun Le is looking great! She is such a cute little girl. The three kiddos together look so cute...quite a good looking three you have. Lisa
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