Saturday, June 7, 2008

The good and the bad





We are home from Chicago Children's, Z looks great and has done wonderful. The hardest part was the wait but with so many Dr's working on him we did get reports as each Dr finished. I was able to carry him to the O.R. and inside they let me stay until he was asleep, it was hard kissing him good bye. Dental was done first and everything went well, they had to pull one tooth (he had an extra) and put caps on 2 back molars and a few fillings. The ENT called to tell us that she put in larger tubes that should last 2 years! One of his tubes had come out and the other was 3/4 the way out. We talked to the Urologist in recovery, and everything went well and when the bandage comes off Z will look like every other circumcised boy. We talked to Dr Corcoran (plastic surgeon) before we went to the recovery room. She was not able to do all that she wanted, she explained that Z must of had a large asymmetrical bilateral cleft. She thinks that they did try to close the palate in China and because of the size it had opened. Good news his soft palate repair in China was great. She didn’t attach all of the lip muscles because she had opened up so much in order to close the palate and repair his nose. He does look great. The bad news comes today; we have a fistula from behind his front teeth into his nose. I’ll be calling the Dr in the morning. I’ve heard of fistulas closing and please pray that this one will.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008



Tomorrow morning at 5:20 am, we drive to Chicago Children's for surgery. They'll redo Z's lip as the muscles aren't attached, fix his nose and close his hard palate. The dentist will come and do his teeth and the urologist will repair his buried penis - also the ENT will clean his ears and check his tubes. Surgery 5 1/2 hours and that's with urology and the dentist working at the same time.

We have been told that we will be coming home Friday morning. The cleft Dr will be sending us home with Motrin and the urologist with Tylenol with codeine.
Z will be on a soft food diet for 2 weeks, that's soft food as in anything he can drink out of a cup, no straws and no spoons.

Urologist says Z can be active when he feels like it, but no bike riding, no climbing, no horse play and anything else an almost 5 year old boy does for 2 weeks.

Other adoptive families have survived and we will to, although Dad has his doubts.