What a Difference a Day Can Make!

We want to show a few pics and give updates about how our post surgery recovery for Chun Le is going. This first photo was taken about 9am when Chun Le woke up the morning after surgery at the hospital. She was pretty swollen as you can see and very groggy. She had not eaten or drank anything through that night even though she was awake on and off every couple hours. She kept refusing water and shook her head no when I would offer her bottle. I think all the throwing up from the previous afternoon and evening made her appetite go away and she was getting lots of fluid through her IV so she probably was not terribly thirsty.

As the day at the hospital went on, she kept feeling and acting more like herself. We did not sense any strong pain response from her so we did not give her any more morphine (or other pain meds) after 4am on Wednesday morning but she was still refusing to drink anything. That was preventing us from being discharged since they wanted to be sure she could tolerate some liquids and also wanted to try to give her a dose of children's motrin orally so that we knew we had a way to control pain at home if needed. Finally around 1pm she said "yes" when we offered her a bottle of milk. Over the course of an hour she only drank about 2-3 ounces of it, but that was enough the nurse felt to give her some motrin and be discharged as long as I was comfortable with bringing her home. I sure was!! My Dad had been at the hospital with me and Chun Le since about 12:30pm so that he could drive us home and both of us realized that she was going stir crazy being confined to a small area in the hospital room that her IV tubes and heart monitor would allow her to move around in. She was acting very playful and showing no signs of pain even though she had not been on pain meds since 4am. We were ready to go home and if dehydration became an issue at home we would deal with it at that time. So we finally got discharged at about 4pm on Wednesday. Here she is all dressed in PJs and free of IV tubes and heart monitor and ready to go home!

When we got home, after a nap in the car that continued until about 5pm when I woke her up, she was like a new kid. We offered her bottle of milk and she took it without hesitation. Instead of us squeezing drops of milk into her mouth with the cleft bottle, she took it herself and drank like she always does at home! Then she wanted rice cereal mixed with milk and ate 5 bowls of it (probably a total of about 1 cup prepared rice cereal!!). I had to cut her off at that point concerned that eating so much at once might trigger her throwing up again. We got her distracted with a bath that she enjoyed and it helped to get some of the crusty dried blood off. It was hard getting to her bed that night as she just did not want to fall asleep. She had been so off routine for the past day and a half! Thankfully, it was arranged that Susan and Enrique have our big kids for one more night as we adjusted Chun Le to being back home--so having her finally fall asleep at 11pm with lots of fussing and crying for about 2-3 hours before that was not too disrupting. Phil and I were exhausted, but able to manage Chun Le much more easily than Rachel and Isaac would have at that point I am sure.

Here is a picture taken on Thursday morning when Chun Le woke up.

Looking more like our little girl that we know and love don't you think? :) The doctor did a nice job on her lip revision as it is getting easier to see what the final product will look like. Rachel and Isaac were able to help distract Chun Le last night as I used some hydrogen peroxide to try to clean and loosen up dried blood around the stitches. It stings a bit when it bubbles up, but Dr. Daw really wanted us to do our best to try to clean that blood out. Last night was the first time she really let me work on it to any extent so it is getting even better looking as that comes off little by little. Now our efforts are to keep her low key playing and not eating all the foods that she sees us eating. She is supposed to stay on soft/pureed food diet for 2 weeks. This is going to be a challenge---we are so grateful it is a challenge though rather than being at the hospital again with a little one who is dehyrated. Thank you for your continued prayers and support during this time!

Here is a picture of Chun Le taken this morning (Friday--3 days post surgery).