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July came and went, and it went fast. We had so much fun! From swimming, to being with family, hanging out with friends to vacation time!

But then August came, and pretty much right away (August 4th) we had some down time with the surgery. The surgery itself went super well. There’s an area under her jawline on HER right side that we liked to call the “ball” – basically a small clump of cysts there. This area would swell up or get hard when she got sick, had surgery etc. And in order for it not to cause problems in the future, it needed to be removed. So… that was removed, plus there was a channel from there that went up to the tongue, and so that didn’t cause any problems he did an injection there (with a sclerosing agent- as she had done in the past). Then she also had a little lasering done under her tongue and in her mouth as needed. Well with all that being done, they only gave her a small dosage of pain medication while she was under anesthesia. So the anesthesiologists said “when she wakes up she will probably be pretty cranky- as she may be uncomfortable and should start to feel some pain in about 30 minutes”. She slept right through for a couple hours and woke up saying nothing hurt. She acted fine, only tired/groggy from the anesthesia. We were SO glad for that. And she came home just fine as well, not a drop of tylenol or anything. Tough kiddo huh!

After a day or two Mary Elizabeth swelled up a bit in the area, most people did not notice because it wasn’t any worse than it looked before, but it’s supposed to look better not the same, so it was swollen. And as always she is on steroids post-op, but this is the nature of her condition and what we are used to seeing. 7 days after surgery she saw Dr. Waner at the office and he removed her stitches, but her drain (that was put in at surgery) still remains. He did note the swelling and to take care of that and any scar tissue build up he will follow up with a steroid injection in 6 weeks. (September 19th she is set to go in the OR). She often gets a steroid injection 6-8 weeks post surgery and that has always helped so we were on board with that.

Right now we wait… wait for this drain to slow down and be ready to come out. At first we thought it was starting to slow down, then the drainage amount went a bit up, then back down and now up again. Unsure why, but either way we can’t wait til it calms down and comes out. Mary Elizabeth is eager herself. She cannot swim with it in and we have to tell her to be careful as she doesn’t want to have anything tug on it or whatever. The actual drain site has bled a little from tugging. So that isn’t really fun. And well, the risk of infection is always there. So we just can’t wait to see it go. Especially since it put a damper on the end of the summer for her. But we’re still trying to have as much fun as possible anyway.

So as you can see we have a few more trips to NYC in the near future…. and in addition to that….

Tomorrow we go down as well!! But not for a medical appointment, you see- Dr. Waner’s foundation contacted us to have Mary Elizabeth sent to a photographer to take pictures of her. If we agreed they’d do a photo shoot of her so they can use it for a calendar he may put out or any flyers/brochures etc he does in the future. We had no problem agreeing to that and we are looking forward to doing this.

Soon we’ll be getting ready for the kids to go back to school. Can’t believe the summer is coming to an end. Well, keep everything in prayer if you can and thanks for reading. We shall update soon!