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Lots of Dr Appts were going on here….

Andy: He ended up recently with a touch of the flu (along with ME who recovered just fine). His caused a sinus infection and double ear infection. His ear infections got so bad that his ear drums ruptured – BOTH of them. He ended up one night in the ER with his ears bleeding and found this out. Which got him a ticket to see an ENT dr. Since then he is doing and feeling a lot better, his ears are just gonna take a while. So if you see him and he doesnt appear to realize you are talking or hear what you are saying, it’s because of his hearing being affected for a while (Dr says at least a month, or two). So we’re all repeating ourselves 2-3 times around here for now 😉 Otherwise Daddy is doing well and busy with work and musical endeavors.

Jessica: Not as big of a deal (well most likely not). But ME found a ‘buggy’ on mommy’s back. And sure enough it was a tick. (Which freaked mommy out big time!!) So off to the dr with that and they’ll do bloodwork to be sure nothing is up. I’m sure its not but I didn’t save the tick- oops. All in all Mommy is fine and doing well, other than being hectic and running around all over the place.

Drew: He went for his 6
month check up with the eye dr and his "lazy eye" which was hardly
noticeable before (only noticed when he woke up from a nap)…. is even
less noticeable now. I rarely see it at all. The dr said it improved
and he barely can even call it lazy eye but it’s there a tad so we’ll
see him every 6 months just to check it. Drew is also doing well and being absolutely adorable as ever. He seems to be learning a new word everyday and is babbling a lot! So cute!

Now for the biggie….

Mary Elizabeth: she just saw her
radiologist in NYC this afternoon. I cannot express how fond I am of
this man and amazed at his knowledge. It helps how great he is with
Mary Elizabeth too. Anyway, Dr. B says she’s getting a lot of good
results from the Sclerotherapy and wants to continue with it. He
scheduled us for May 26th for her next one. He wants to tackle the
floor of mouth area, a little chin and cheek perhaps. He decides for
sure as he is doing it with the ultrasounds. He put a picture up of her
before her first sclero, and one recent one we sent him. Amazing to see
how far we’ve come. These are different pictures and not the exact same
angles and whatnot but the first one is from a few days before her
first sclero (back in June of ’07) and the other one is from this past
St Patrick’s Day. While it is 2 yrs apart that is because we have had
to space the sclerotherapys out a bit. And we had a huge break back
when I was pregnant and Drew was first born.

Now
sure she’s grown in 2 yrs. But the difference in her cheeks and the
sides of her face etc is great. She has definition around her chin
area, more around her mouh and you notice her nose more because its not
surrounded with cysts.
While it does seem that her chin is more
pronounced or "longer" that’s because her face isn’t as wide as it used
to be so we notice it more… and she has grown. The future jaw surgery
will help push her chin back instead of outward. Also apparantly she
has a bit of scar tissue in there they will have to remove.
We are glad that she has had results from this and are looking forward to seeing more.

Aside from that she has a small dental procedure in the OR on April 2nd. So we pray that goes well too.
And
all in all she is doing quite well. We are amazed that she is going to
be 4 yrs old soon. She is cracking us up left and right with her witty
comments and all-knowing ways. She’s such a cute little smarty pants!

Hope everyone had a good day!

Sorry everyone. Been a while since the surgery (10 days to be exact) and I meant to post an update sooner but life happened. To our surprise she did extremely well with recovery so we haven’t really been house-ridden or have had any downtime!

Soooo…. Surgery went well. They did a lot of injections to the right side of her face (cheek area etc) and to her chin. With the MRI they see a remarkable difference and wanted to try to get the right side to be more symmetrical (the right was always worse and where the malformation started). They injected the areas that they could. This time avoided the floor of her mouth – which I think helped in recooperation since eating and speech weren’t AS affected. (In the past her tongue would swell and she couldn’t eat or speak which made her miserable- this was not the case this time).

From the DAY OF SURGERY (Monday Feb 9th) she was in good spirits. First of all she was a very good girl about going in. Did whine a little and tell us she didn’t want to do it, but asked a lot of questions and we explained and she did not have any tantrums about  it. She was very brave. Then as she came out of surgery (4 hrs later)- she was very sleepy and slept most of the day. In the evening she was her witty little charming self- talking to us a bit and laughing. It was so good to see her smile THAT SOON after surgery.
She did have a bit of discomfort because this was the first time they used a foley catheter to collect her urine. And when it came out she was very upset. Also had a bit of discomfort the next time she went to the bathroom. After that though she was doing pretty good.

The worst of her swelling was on Tuesday and it was pretty swollen the first few days after that. Her right side was pretty far out and her bottom lip looked as if someone punched her pretty bad. That gave her some difficulty with liquids but not enough to bring her down of course. She was running about the house and making lots of messes just as she normally does. But the swelling started to come down quickly. As I speak, she is still swollen but it’s definitely not the worst we’ve seen and she seems very comfortable so I’m glad for that.

We are very thankful that she has been in good spirits and that the swelling hasn’t been too uncomfortable for her. We are praying and hoping for good results from this and are being patient as we know it takes time.

As always keep her in your prayers and we will be sure to keep you informed 😉

Her Surgery date has changed!!!!

Tuesday, February 10th was the original date for the sclerotherapy/injection surgery. It is now changed to Monday, February 9th.

The reason why they changed it is because they want an updated MRI and the only time they could get her in for the MRI in the hospital was on Monday. Instead of making us go to the city twice and put her under anesthesia 2 days in a row… they reorganized things to make it happen all in one day. Sooooo….. change your calendars and say your prayers.

In addition, pray that God will put a little bubble right around Mary Elizabeth. Mommy is sick with a head cold (and daddy a little too now). So far she seems fine. They said surgery will be good to go as long as she doesn’t get a fever or an abundance of green mucous/secretions. So we hope she can stay healthy until then… and of course we pray for a successful surgery with no complications and perhaps an easier time with recooperation than she’s had in the past.

We will of course, post an update as soon as we have more information.