plastic surgery.

It's not as glamorous as it sounds.

Today we met with Ruthe's plastic surgeon to talk about her cleft palate repair.  She's about six months overdue for this surgery, so we're hoping to get on the fast track and be d.o.n.e. with surgeries and hospitals for a few years!

Her surgeon is really nice.  He tries to explain things in a way I can understand, but let's be honest - there's only room in my brain for one chapter of an anatomy textbook and the heart chapter is a big one!  So I absorbed about fifteen percent of what he said.

The main jist is that he'll repair Ruthe's soft palate by stitching the center together and opening the two sides a little bit to release tension and decrease the possibility of the wound reopening.  He also said something about whether or not her uvula is long enough and making a call during surgery between the two different ways to repair that... That's where he lost me.

She'll only be in the hospital overnight, which is really nice.  (Since she's still fed 100% by the gtube she doesn't have to start swallowing food before she can leave the hospital, unlike most kids and babies having similar surgeries.)

It will take her about three weeks to heal completely, and during that time her arms will have to be restrained so she doesn't get her fingers in her mouth.  Also no hard toys or food for the three weeks.  I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that's going to be for her... she LOVES to put things in her mouth.

We're really hoping everything works out in our favor and we can have this surgery done at Sunrise, like all her other surgeries.  It depends on how nice the scheduling department is about it and whether or not the ENT has privileges there (Ruthe will also be having tubes put in her ears).  We really just LOVE Sunrise Children's Hospital, and I don't ever want to think about Ruthe having anything done anywhere else.  However scary the neighborhood is at night... it's still next door to her cardiologist's office and that makes me feel so much better in case something happens.  So keep your fingers crossed that I can get my way!!  Haha.

And look at those TEETH!!  She's so cute.  

She's also a biter, so beware.