Dr. Kuang, the surgeon, Dr Shazad, surgical resident, & Dr. Garfinkle. Amazing team who gave mt baby a face anyone could love.
I've sort of been avoiding writing because I'm feeling very disorganized and jumpy in my thinking and hate to subject any readers to that experience, but I also want there to be some documentation of this time. So I'm writing anyway. I can trust you to read what you want to, right?
I just came across a letter on the "wide smiles" website that describes beautifully my experience of and reaction to Sean Michael's new face. http://www.widesmiles.org/cleftlinks/WS-462.html I'm sure my mom and Matt would feel the same. I'd say we each went through a grieving and it seemed to hit hardest a few days after surgery. After the initial fear of caring for a baby in pain and with such a fresh wound and after getting in the swing with the intense post-op schedule. Oh. the schedule! Matt got on the computer our first night out of the hospital and made us an excell spreadsheet to help us keep track. Here is a list of what we were tracking:
- Pain medication (Tylenol w/ codeine, or just Tylenol because Ibuprofen causes bleeding) every 4 hours
- A laxative twice a day while he was on the codeine.
- Oral antibiotics every 6 hours
- pumping breastmilk every 5 hours
- Cleaning scabs and applying ointment 3 times/day
Dr. Kuang wanted us to do the cleaning 5 times a day, but we quickly realized we just couldn't do it. I mean, Sean Michael screamed every time we came at him with any medicine syringe, Q-tip or even the bottle those first days. We couldn't bear actually inflicting pain on him. My mom, Grammy, was great. She helped us keep track of that schedule and take care of Pearl. Rohan stayed in Portland a few days with Grandma and Papa. That was a big help too. Matt took that whole week off of work.
Things got easier and easier as each medication ended and his incisions began to heal. He did very well with those arm restraints considering he was almost crawling and putting EVERYTHING in his mouth before the surgery. It was just really cumbersome to take care of him. On the bright side he could play with ANYTHING because he couldn't reach his mouth. We took full advantage and allowed him to feel all kinds of usually forbidden toys like Rohan's legos or tin foil. :)
Nasal stents and arm restraints were removed 3 weeks post op. Above photo was taken then.
More later....
