August 29, 2012 Surgery

Okay…here is the more detailed update.
Surgery didn’t start until 3ish so essentially her surgery was a bit over 3 hours.

I scribbled down notes when Dr. Walker called but I left them in the car. Again some of what I am writing here we knew – Rosie’s mouth formation is abnormal, her jaw bone malformed etc. we knew than. What we didn’t know is that her tongue is really short and very thin up fr

ont but wide and “meaty” in the back so accessing her airway and keeping her under was a challenge because there isn’t a lot of workable space in her mouth.Dr. Walker took out all of the top back teeth in order to get enough tissue to shore up the weak front spots between jaw and nasal cavity. Dr. Walker said that in proportion to Rosie’s mouth, those teeth were way too large and would only continue to cause stress to the upper jaw especially once Rosie learned how to chew with her back teeth. Top jaw has no teeth left but the bone and tissue should not longer give her issues. She also will have more room for the chubby little tongue.

Dr. Walker says she fashioned Rosie a cute little chin. She shored up the weak spots there. Rosie will have to be fed in such a way that no pressure is put on the front but again that’s fine. Hand feeding, syringe feeding, I don’t care. She left her back lower teeth in to anchor her jaw bone. I have to brush them several times a day and keep them and her gums in good shape. Dr. Walker said if they go bad and have to be removed, that will be a horrible ordeal because Rosie’s mouth is so tiny.

Rosie’s jaw bone was kind of jagged so she also smoothed down the bone while in there.

She is staying the night in the ICU and the joint decision was that my going to visit her may make her less inclined to take a syringe feeding from the ICU nurse tonight. If she thinks I am there, Rosie will hold out for me to feed her. Also, this makes it less stressful for Eddie who would be a wreck monitoring her all day by himself – he is more of a worrier than I am. I would prefer she was home but having 24/7 nursing care in a state-of-the art facility for the first day after this surgery is the best thing for her.

I will call in the morning to check on her and I can pick her up on my way home from work. Thankfully we are heading into a long weekend and I will be home on Monday so can just spend the weekend caring for her.

Dr. Walker photographed everything and will give me a cd with the pics. I will pick the less gruesome ones of the procedure and post them tomorrow. I am personally very curious to see what was done and how it was done. I imagine many of you are too!!!

Bottom line, everything is coming up Roses for Rosie…I will still be a mess until she is home though!!! Thank you everyone for everything and let’s keep praying that this is the last surgery she will ever need!!! xxoo to you all.