Lilah's Journey - Part 4

 Lilah's mom, Paige, has shared her daughter's journey to repair her Tessier Cleft. We have shared Lilah's story here, as the treatment has progressed. Lilah's final surgery will repair her eye, complete a bone graft for her cleft and make some soft tissue changes. The first post on this journey can be found here. The second and third can be found here and here. And you can read Lilah's adoption story here.

This weekend while we were away celebrating my parents 40th wedding anniversary in Kananaskis, Lilah developed a small hole by her ear. We only noticed it because there was some clear fluid continually running down her face. The tissue expander (back by her ear) was glowing red and Tim quickly knew that there was an infection. We discovered all this while celebrating at dinner on Saturday night, and as soon as we were done, Tim took Lilah into Canmore to the ER. Luckily, the ER Doctor was very friendly and let Tim take control of what needed to be done.





Tim removed 10cc's of the saline in the expander, cleaned the wound and put Lilah on antibiotics. Once the hole is there it is next to impossible to close again. Each day it has become slightly bigger.





So this morning we headed off to see the Plastic Surgeon. Surgery is tomorrow morning, bright and early. Luckily, I have an amazing friend willing to take Zoe for the day! I am feeling very nervous and anxious and emotional right now. I don't really do well with surprises.

Lilah shouldn't need to spend the night, if all goes well. The tissue expander hasn't been in as long as they would have liked, so we are hoping for a great outcome, even though the skin could retract more than it would if we had done it on June 23rd as planned.

It is all in God's hands.

Read more about Lilah and her family at Life's Little Wonders.