Lycra Baby & Her Striped Sibling

Today was a day for fashion statements around here. This morning, Melody's physical therapist put a pair of black spandex "shorts" on her. They were actually more like a tube with stitching down the middle to make separate leg holes. The idea is to keep her legs from splaying out due to weak hips. Purpose aside, I couldn't get over the cuteness of a baby in black spandex! I couldn't help but take a few photos.

My shorts are all the rage!

Aren't I good enough to eat?

This is so much fun!

All tired out from working so hard!

This afternoon, Julie ended up in quite the interesting outfit of her own. I promise that I did not dress her this way at the beginning of the day. She ended up in the pants at nap time (yes, she's taking naps again, today about 40 minutes worth) and the dress later on. Her winter coat made for a nice finishing touch. I almost left her like this when we went to the store, but in the end I just couldn't do it. I guess I should enjoy these days where she doesn't realize that pink and gray stripes don't really go with green and white stripes!



Health-wise, we're doing fine right now. Julie went back to preschool today and had a great time. After a week of trying to switch Melody to one nap and Julie to no naps, it became clear that we couldn't go on that way. Everybody (including me) was way too cranky. So, Melody is back to 2 naps and Julie is back to 1 (short is better than nothing). I'm sure it will change next week again, as usual! As they say, the only constant in life is change, right?

Small Setback

Yesterday evening we took Julie to the McDonald's playland for a little time out of the house. We went to the one for toddlers...no climbing or sliding or anything, just plastic animals to crawl around on. About 10 minutes into playing, an unsupervised toddler barreled into her, hitting her right in the surgery ear. (The kid knocked down two children, actually...why are parents so irresponsible about watching their kids there? Grrrrr.) Julie reacted in a way that we only see when she is truly in pain. Then we saw the blood. Oh my, the blood. The lady at the next table was a pediatrician and she ran over to look. She said it looked like part of the incision had opened and maybe we should go to the ER. We quickly gathered our things while holding napkins to Julie's head. I rode in the backseat of the car to keep applying pressure. Julie was fairly hysterical, mostly about the blood on her hands. We decided to go home so we could see how it looked and get her head bandage. It was chaos. Julie was screaming, Melody was screaming, Larry and I were in crisis mode. There was blood on Larry's shirt and pants, my shirt and undergarment (soaked through my shirt), Julie's shirt and pants, the bathroom rug, the floor, the cabinet, the sink...everywhere, it seemed. Amazingly, we managed to stop the bleeding and clean everybody up while placing a call to the on-call ENT in our practice. It happened to be Julie's surgeon! He called us back and said not to go in. Suturing the wound would just risk more infection. He said we could use ice and ibuprofen to help the swelling if we wanted to. We felt so much better after talking to him. Julie was fine after we cleaned her up, minus the swelling and bruising behind her ear. So that's our small setback. Things are fine today, but we're feeling much more vigilant about her activities (the Dr. had cleared her for play, in case you're wondering). She's going back to preschool next week, but I think I'm going to talk to them about recess. We don't need a repeat of yesterday!

In other news, Melody has learned to say "hi." It is SO sweet! She said it to a lady at church today, who exclaimed "she's too small for words to be coming out of her mouth!" That is so exciting to hear! Melody is also now able to sign "more" and then "please" together. Two signs together, at 13 months!

Julie has made a huge leap forward in language as well. I can't even adequately convey the significance of this one. We have been trying for SO long to help her get it. It's been one of the major items that has made her seem "different" from other 2-3 year-olds. What is it? The word "yeah" (not "yay," but the casual form of "yes"). Previously, I could say "do you want to watch a video" and I'd be met with silence or maybe with "video." I could say "do you like your food?" and I'd feel like I was talking to the air. Now, however, I get an amazing reply..."yeah!" I can say "do you want some juice" and Julie will exclaim "yeah!" Or she'll use it on her own, like "go playground, yeah!" Maybe it's hard to grasp why this is so exciting to me. I don't know how to put it into words. Suddenly I'm having an actual conversation with Julie...getting a reply...sensing comprehension...interacting...receiving confirmation from her...connecting...talking with my daughter, not just to her. Her words are flowing more and more. It is truly amazing and gives me such renewed hope for her future. I know that God has great plans for her life and I am honored to be part of them.

Finally, I want to note that Julie is doing so well with the potty. She has decided that she wants to go #2 in the potty now, mostly to get the lollipop reward. That's fine with me! We've had several successful #2's in a row now, so I think she's pretty much got it. We even tried putting her in underwear overnight, but she woke up wet. We'll just use pull-ups for now. I do have to work with her on wiping technique. Yesterday she wiped (#1) and then pulled the tissue up and wiped Melody's nose!!! ACK! Today she did the same thing to herself! I can see I have some work to do (cough!). It'll make a good story one day, and Melody will have fun holding it over Julie's head, I'm sure! :-)

Healing

Julie is healing up nicely at this point. Today is the first day that her incision didn't actively bleed, yay! We got a little scared yesterday morning when we found her covered in blood, feverish, and crying. Her bed also had quite a bit of blood on it. After cleaning her up and giving her more pain medication, we got an appointment to see her surgeon. Larry took her in and the surgeon looked her over. His conclusion? "Looks great!" He could have told us in advance that there was going to be A LOT of blood. Every night we put her in the bath and carefully work to remove large, coagulated clumps from her hair. Today we finally took the ear cup off and let the wound get some air. It's back on now to protect her ear while she sleeps. If there's not much bleeding overnight, maybe we can be done with it for good. Here's hoping! (I've decided not to post the really bloody pictures because they're just not fun. You probably don't want to see them anyway.)

We still have a life outside of medical issues, believe it or not! I've been saving up a couple of cute stories to share. Yesterday I showed Julie a picture of our family from last Christmas. Melody wasn't with us yet, of course. She was just 3 months old and living in China at the time. I asked Julie who was in the picture and she said "Julie, Mommy, Daddy," paused, and added "Meddy sweeping" (Melody sleeping). How sweet is that? In her mind, if Melody isn't present with the rest of us, she must be sleeping. It warmed my heart to realize how Julie has truly incorporated Melody into her definition of our family. Of course, today when I brought Melody down from her nap, all Julie had to say was "no Meddy, Mama, no Meddy!" I guess that's sisterhood for you!

Speaking of Melody, she is learning so much! Besides saying "uh oh," she is working on "up," "more" and "meow." She can now sign bed, cat, bird, pray, amen, wash hands and some others that I'm not thinking of right now. It is so amazing to see her sign cat while saying "ooowww" and then realize that the cat is, indeed, walking by. I will try to upload a video of it soon. Here are some pictures of Melody that I took outside today.

Post-Surgery Update

Julie came through this morning's surgery like the strong little girl that she is. When we first arrived, she kept saying "go hospital," but she didn't panic or even get anxious. She even handled having her vitals checked without crying! Then they gave her some medication to relax her (good stuff!). It made her laugh and giggle and move in slow motion, which is kind of funny when she wanted to use sign language. Here she is in loopy-land:


The surgery itself lasted about 2.5 hours (longer than expected), during which I got to visit with a good friend and neighbor who had a baby via emergency c-section on Saturday. Having her there in the same hospital almost made me feel like we were at home. Her baby is so adorable and perfect. It's a true blessing that he is here since there was a knot in his cord and the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. It was really amazing holding him. It's always hard to fathom how small newborns are until you hold one again. Wow.

Back to surgery. The surgeon came out to talk to us while Julie was in recovery. He explained that the tumor had grown back aggressively and it was really big (relatively speaking...this is all happening in a very small part of the body). It was basically spread all throughout her middle ear. He even had to use a needle tip to scrape it out of a teeny tiny crevice. Unfortunately, the tumor had eroded the bony casing of her facial nerve, two out of the three delicate ear bones that help conduct sound to the inner ear, and half the eardrum. The doctor reconstructed the eardrum using muscle from the incision site. He also removed the ear canal wall to reduce the chance that the tumor will return. A year from now he will insert prosthetic ear bones, allowing Julie to hear normally again. For now, she will continue to suffer hearing loss in that ear. We asked about hearing aides and we're going to pursue it more when we see the doctor in 2 weeks. We also learned that Julie's recent CT scan showed the beginning of a similar condition in her right ear, which means she will need surgery on it too. The doctor said we'll let the left ear heal first, but we'll probably be back in surgery before Christmas. We really love our surgeon and we feel so blessed to have him. He took a picture during surgery and gave us a copy to keep. He even drew diagrams on the back to help us understand what was going on inside. He was really surprised to find such a serious situation in there, which is saying something coming from such an experinced surgeon. If anyone can help Julie, he can.

One other interesting thing came up during our consultation. The surgeon looked right at us and said "if she had stayed in China without any surgical intervention she would be deaf." That's scary to think about (not because we think deafness is scary, but because it could have been prevented). He also said that we've made a positive impact on her life by adopting her. As much as we avoid saying that kind of thing in the adoption community (we don't adopt to "save" a child), I guess it seems clear to him from a medical point of view. In fact, if the tumor had been left to grow unchecked, it would have eventually invaded her brain, leading to all kinds of outcomes I can't even bear to entertain. It is sad to think that all of this could probably have been avoided if she had received complete medical care from birth. It doesn't help to dwell on that though. I'm just grateful to God that we received our Julie when we did and that we are in such good hands now. (One last note: our surgeon is Asian-American, but I'm not sure of his cultural background.)

Back to surgery, again. Julie kind of freaked out waking up from the anesthesia, so they came to get me and let me hold her. She settled down somewhat but continued to protest the bandage over her IV as well as the pulse-ox clip. She definitely does not like the bandage around her head, but she has to keep it on for now. We set up our tent in the living room so that we can sleep with her to make sure she doesn't pull it off. We just gave her a dose of Tylenol with Codeine and we're waiting for sleep to come. We also changed the dressing over her ear because it had completely soaked through with blood. I remember the same thing happening last time we had this surgery, but I was a lot more nervous about it then. I guess a couple years of parenting helps! And for the record, Melody was absolutely amazing today. She tagged along and did SO well. She only cried when Julie was really upset, which is understandable. We made it home for lunch and nap, and now Melody is sleeping in her crib. (She was up most of last night and we're praying it doesn't happen again tonight...please!!!)

Here is Julie post-op:

The DVD player saved the day yet again. It really helped her settle down.

Same pose, different setting: home!

Just before we changed the bandage.

Tent!

Pumpkins and Surgery

Julie's surgery will be tomorrow at 7AM. We have to be at the hospital at 5:45. We're taking Melody along with us because we have no other options. I will attempt to update as soon as I can.

Today we went to a pumpkin farm hoping to snag some great fall pictures of the girls. Julie wasn't in a picture taking mood, however, so most of her photos have grimaces of one sort or another. She also had a meltdown about not being able to ride a particular ride (the line was just way too long), so we left. It was still a fun time overall. Here are a few of the pictures.

Testing

Hmmm...I seem to have lost my comment link but I can't figure out why. I'm trying to see if I can get it back...

Okay Grandma, I Hear You!

Somebody (who shall remain nameless) has been waiting patiently for more pictures. Here are a few from last Sunday before church. We went to our old church to introduce Melody to everybody. For those of you who don't know, our old church is an international church made up of mostly Chinese. They love to see our kids and we love to see all of them.

Good News, Bad News

Medically speaking, we have some good news and bad news. The good news is that Melody's palate isn't open like Larry thought it was. He's not sure what he saw, but the doctor said it's too early to tell if it is opening. I forgot to ask about the food coming out her nose. We go back in a few weeks so I'll ask then.

Now, the bad news. I spoke to Julie's ENT about the results of her CT scan. He believes that Julie's mastoid infection and cholesteatoma (benign tumor) have reoccurred. That means she needs surgery to clear both out, as well as put in tubes. I asked if this will be a yearly thing and the doctor said it shouldn't be. When he goes in this time, he will surgically enlarge Julie's ear canal to reduce the chance of recurrence. It's amazing what they can do. The surgery makes me nervous though, since it puts the facial nerve at risk. Damaging that would lead to facial paralysis on one side. Our doctor is really skilled though, and I'm glad he'll be the one working on Julie. We are scheduled for surgery this coming Monday, the 22nd, at Central DuPage Hospital. We would greatly appreciate your prayers.

Sleep Like a Baby?

Isn't that phrase supposed to mean that babies sleep well and a lot? Maybe it is referring to very young babies? All I know is that is is not referring to my baby Melody. I really hope that sleep habits can be learned over time because her current patterns are not cutting it. Last night she was up wailing at 3AM for no apparent reason. She went back down, thankfully. This morning I put her down for her usual nap and she wailed until she finally fell asleep for a grand total of 15 minutes. This afternoon I spent extra time soothing her and helping her drift off to sleep. It worked. I looked at the clock when I came downstairs and it said 1:20. At 2:30 she was up wailing. I don't get it. The minute she gains the least bit of consciousness she wails. Why? I desperately want to provide whatever it is she needs to feel secure and whole, but what is that? I know that well-rested children are supposed to wake up happy, but Melody never does. She always wakes crying. Most of the time I can tell that she hasn't slept enough, but there's nothing I can do about it. She seems fine during the rest of the day, thankfully. It's so hard not knowing how to help her. Maybe time will help us all.

Favicon

I'm officially hooked on editing my blog. Tonight I learned what a "favicon" is and I actually created one! Do you see it? It's the little heart shape next to the URL for this page. Woo hoo!

New Sleep Scenario

As much as I've been resisting it, I think Julie is pretty much done taking an afternoon nap. Actually, she's in between needing one and not needing one. She is not tired right after lunch, but she will fall asleep later in the afternoon if we take a ride in the car or stroller. That works out fine, as long as she doesn't sleep for very long. Yesterday I managed to rock her to sleep after lunch and she took a regular nap. The result was that she didn't fall asleep at night until after 10PM. Also, I had to move Melody out of their room because Julie was making it impossible for Melody to sleep. Not ideal. A perk of Julie not napping is that Melody gets to nap in her crib instead of in the pack-n-play in my room. I guess it's just time to face the music and give up my much-loved break in the afternoon. I'll gain some of that time back in the evening, since bedtime moves back to 7/7:30 with no nap. That's pretty good! Ultimately, though, it's not about me. It's about the well-being of my children, and this seems to be what they need at the moment. On that note, I'd better go spend some time with my big girl while my little girl is sleeping!

Who Do You Think You Are?

On my way home from dropping Julie off at preschool, I heard the following quote on my favorite Christian radio station:

You are not what you think you are. You are not even what others think you are. You are what you think others think you are.

Hmmm...interesting. The implication is that we define ourselves by our understanding of others' perceptions of us. The speaker went on to explain that this is why children have such a hard time with teasing or other unkind comments. I suppose it gives some good insight into self-esteem issues, but I can't help but think something is missing. I was expecting to hear something along the lines of "You are what God thinks you are...what He knows you are...what He made you to be." After all, he is the only objective one among us, the only one whose view is based on factual knowledge and not just opinion...the one who designed and created us specifically with a purpose in mind. Whether we seek to hear his defining voice is another matter entirely, and it is admittedly not always easy. Hence, my ongoing struggle to write the "about me" blurb for this blog. How exactly do I define myself in a few sentences? Who am I really? Maybe I'll be inspired now that I'm making progress on fixing up the rest of the blog. We'll see!

$14,523.00

Fourteen thousand five hundred twenty three dollars and zero cents. A lot of money, right? It's also the amount on the bill for Melody's surgery and hospitalization. Thank the Lord for insurance!!

Blog Baby Steps

I've finally had some success changing the look of my blog! It's not exactly what I want, but I'm excited to have gotten somewhere tonight. Now I have options! Of course, we all know how much free time a mommy has, so it may be a while before I can really figure it all out. It's quite an education though. I suppose it's good for my brain to study and learn something new again. I miss being a student. But now it's late...better go...

Progress

Melody slept through the night Sunday night! When I woke up early Sunday morning, I thought for sure that something terrible had happened to cause the lack of commotion during the night. Thankfully, that was not the case and we all had a much happier day than the previous few. Last night brought one waking episode that kept us up for about an hour. After that she slept the rest of the night. Our current theory is that she is having trouble with her "new" nose. Before her palate was closed, her nasal cavity was open to her mouth. Now it is closed off, causing her to experience nasal congestion for the first time. We can hear her gurgling and trying to breathe at night, and there is thick, pasty gunk coming out of her nose during the day. We all know how hard it is to sleep when we can't breathe. The good news is that the girls are back to sharing a room, which gives us grownups our room back at night. I have to split them up for nap time because it's a lot harder to get them to settle down together in the middle of the day.

In other news, some of you may be wondering what happened with our plans to run the Chicago Marathon on October 7th. Well, Larry went downtown and started the race as a pace leader for the group planning to finish in 5 hours, 30 minutes. I would have paced this group too, if I had gone. Instead, I stayed home to help Melody recover. As most of you probably know, the marathon got called off partway through due to the extreme weather conditions. Larry and his group did not get to finish. He was having a hard time out there without anything to drink (they ran out), so I'm glad he came in early. All in all, he ran about 20 miles out of the 26.2. It sounds like a brutal experience. Larry can usually run through just about anything and do okay, but this time he came home saying "it was terrible." I feel for all the first-timers whose dreams did not pan out. What a crazy day.

I realize that I'm also overdue for an update on Julie's potty-training. I'm pleased as pie to report that she wears biggirlunderwear all day long (except at school)! She sometimes has an accident, but it's usually when I haven't been keeping track of how long it's been since her last visit to the potty. So yes, I prompt her still, but she also often goes without prompting. She still does not want to go #2 in the potty, however, so she holds it until we put a diaper on her at night. Then she goes, hollers, gets changed, and goes to sleep. We still use 2 diapers a day this way, but for now it's okay. We keep working with her to "let the poo-poos out" before bedtime, but it will happen at her pace. One could rephrase the common "horse-to-water" adage to say "you can lead a toddler to the potty, but you can't make him/her poop!" Oh, won't Julie be thrilled to someday know that I shared all this information with a thousand of my closest friends?!?!

Here are a few catch-up pictures. This is Julie in our cat carrier. Silly girl!


Larry's birthday was October 5th. Here we are with his pumpkin pie "cake." Julie has been obsessed with cakes and candles ever since! Happy Birthday Larry!

This is the first bottle Melody drank after surgery. I know, it's just an empty bottle, but it means so much to me!

Yawn

I am running on empty due to lack of sleep. Melody just won't sleep. We have no idea why. She makes it until midnight and that's it. Her naps have not been any better. Today her total nap time was less than an hour. A baby her age should sleep for something like 3-4 hours during the day. Sigh. I start to get kind of crazy when I don't sleep. It is the one circumstance that causes me to struggle with anger in a big way. Julie has not been behaving well either. She just has tantrum after tantrum. I want to explain it more, but I don't have the energy right now. Tonight, we found her totally ripping up a library book when she was supposed to be in bed. I thought library books were safe with my 3 year old, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, I hope this sleepless stage does not last much longer. I need my rational brain back!

Here are a few cute picture that are sure to convince you that this little angel could never cause any trouble for her parents, ha! (If you look closely at the first picture, you can see Melody's two bottom front teeth poking through!)

One Week Later

Melody's surgery was one week ago today. She is recovering well, although she is having some trouble sleeping. We're not sure the cause, as it could be a number of things. At least she is doing well during the day. She even started taking her bottle again! I am so pleased by this, considering that Julie never touched her bottle again after surgery. I wasn't ready to give up bottle feeding Melody, but I was prepared to do so as a likely outcome. Thankfully, that is not the case! She's also eating stage 1 and 2 baby food now. Sadly, Larry looked in Melody's mouth yesterday and said he could see a hole clear through to her nasal cavity, which means the surgery wasn't entirely successful. We see the surgeon tomorrow so we'll find out more then.

Melody also continues to amaze me with who she is, for lack of a better way of saying it. She keeps taking me by surprise with how in tune she is with everything around her. I had no idea that such a little person could have their feelings hurt, for example. I stand corrected! She is very sensitive. She is also quite aware of the fact that she can't have the food the rest of us are eating at dinner and it makes her upset. Today I firmly told her "no" after she ripped a library book...and then my heart broke as her little bottom lip jutted out and her eyes filled with tears. I have never experienced such a reaction from Julie, ever. Maybe that's why I am taken so by surprise by Melody. She is very different from Julie. I'm slowly realizing that I can speak to her in complete sentences, even though she is only 1. I can actually explain some things to her and it seems to help. That may sound like a no-brainer, but not as much when you understand that my 3 year old can only handle very short, uncomplicated phrases at this point (such as "sit down" or "time to eat"). It gets harder and harder to figure out how to help Julie understand basic ideas because I can't rely on words to do it. Anyway, I've digressed pretty far. I struggle with whether to write about some of this because I don't want to make it seem like I am happier with one of my children over the other. That's not true at all. I adore them both beyond my capacity to explain. However, it is true that one of my children has a disability that presents challenges that aren't easy, and it is also true that I am taken by surprise by my more "typically developing" child's lack of struggle in some of those areas. Neither of those things define my love for my children. Both of my girls are gifts that bless my life deeply.

****Warning*****
I am about to post pictures of Melody after surgery. There is nothing graphic, but if you don't like hospital photos, stop reading here!
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Right after surgery. You can see the stitch from her tongue taped to her cheek. She is also pretty puffy.



The next morning. Quite an improvement! She still didn't want to open her mouth much, which made her "uh oh" pretty funny. We could tell that's what she was saying because of the intonation, but it was basically hummed with a closed mouth.


Day 3...Posing with my surgeon, ready to go home!

And here's my nurse, Katie. You can see that my belly didn't suffer too much. It's still nice and round!

For comparison, here are pictures of Julie from January 2006, with the same surgeon and the same nurse. Julie was 19 months old at the time. I can't believe how little she was. She was smaller than Melody is at 12 months. Wow.

Answered Prayers

I am so overwhelmed with all the answered prayers we have experienced this week. We are so grateful to our friends, family and church for praying. Most of all, we are grateful to God for His grace in our lives. It's amazing (hmmm...I guess that's why the hymn is called Amazing Grace!). Melody was discharged from the hospital Thursday afternoon and is doing really well. We discovered a sure-fire way to get her to drink: give her milkshakes! For now, she is living on ice cream/milkshake mixed with some formula. She can start eating stage 1 and 2 baby food tomorrow (Saturday). She seems to be managing the pain well. We don't even have to use the Tylenol with Codeine much at all. We'll see how she does with eating tomorrow. She seems to have accepted the splints on her arms as a fact of life for now, but they do make it hard to get comfortable in bed. I'm a little concerned that milk seems to be coming out her nose, which makes me wonder if there is, indeed, a hole up there somewhere. We'll see the doctor next week and find out more.

The other fantastic news is that Julie made it through her CT scan without sedation!!!!! I can't even describe how thrilled, proud, shocked, and grateful I am about it. She had to lie on a board with her head in a U-shaped receptacle. Then they fastened velcro around her torso and secured a band across her forehead. She was really nervous about it all and it seemed like we might have to opt for sedation. But, Larry held her hands and put his thumb under her chin to help stabilize her head while I stood behind her with the DVD player. She couldn't see the screen, but she could hear the music playing and that was enough. She has such an amazing memory that I know she was seeing the movie in her mind. I could even see her trying to mouth the words to the songs. It helped her to keep still long enough for the techs to get their scans done in between her little movements. It felt like a true miracle when they said "that's it!" No IV, no medications, no sleeping it off for 24 hours. Did I mention how proud I am of my big girl?

Both of them are sleeping right now, so I need to go rest too. We don't sleep through the night too much around here these days. Maybe tonight will be a nice surprise. It is Larry's birthday, so that would be a great present. Thanks again for following along and offering encouragement during our challenges this week. We appreciate all of you!

Wednesday Update

Melody came through surgery like a trooper, praise God! The doctor's first words to us were "it was really hard" (closing her palate, that is). The opening was really wide and there wasn't a lot to work with, but the doctor managed to close it up. He seemed pretty sure that it would open a bit in time and that we'd need to come back in a year or so. For now, we are just so glad that it is done! When I first saw her she was so puffy from swelling. She still is, but I think it's getting better. She looks like she has one of those football player mouth guards in her mouth. I told Larry that she has "perma-pout." She slept most of the day yesterday, waking up only to cry to be held. This morning we are seeing more of her sweet personality emerge. She even tried to sign "daddy," but it's kind of hard with restraints keeping your arms from bending! (She is wearing "splints" that keep her elbows straight so that she can't get her hands in her mouth.) The doctor came by this morning and removed the stitch that was through her tongue and taped to her cheek. She looks more and more like my little girl again. She even gave us a little smile. Talk about melting a mother's heart!

Today's mission is to get Melody to consume liquids by mouth. As you might imagine, she is not too thrilled with that idea. She will accept liquid dribbled into her mouth, but she doesn't want to swallow. I imagine the pain is great. She has been receiving morphine for the pain, which then makes her sleepy and out of it. Today we hope to switch over to Tylenol with codeine. Please pray that we will find a way to help her drink. If she can at least start, they will remove the IV and allow her some more freedom of movement. Ultimately, it is also our ticket out of here! At this point, I'm hoping to go home on Friday, but we'll see.

I will post pictures when I can. Right now I'm on the hospital kiosk, so I can't connect my camera. I'll be back when I can. Thanks so much for your encouragement and prayers. We feel them!

Surgery Underway

Melody is in surgery as I type. The ENT already finished his work of putting in ear tubes. He came out to talk to us and said there was quite a bit of thick, almost puss-like fluid in her ears. I am so glad it's out! She will undoubtedly feel better as a result. Now the plastic surgeon is working on her palate. It will be a few hours until he's done. I will update as soon as I can. Thank you for your prayers.

Leaving the house at 5:30 this morning:


Beautiful girl:


All gowned-up and cute as a button!