June 8, 2011

Lilah's Journey - Surgery

 Lilah's mom, Paige, has chronicled 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 was to repair her eye, complete a bone graft for her cleft and make some soft tissue changes. To see Lilah's journey unfold, be sure to read the first post, second post, third post and fourth post. And you can read Lilah's adoption story here.



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Waiting for surgery




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Going to the OR - who knew it could be so much fun


Everything went really well and we are now home. Tim and I were talking about how we both had such PEACE all day today and know it is because of all the prayers surrounding us.





Lilah is one tough little girl. She is in pain. Mostly where she has stitches by her eye. We haven't actually peeled back her bandage yet to see what it looks like, we will later when we put in her eye drops. We have been warned that it will look very tight and somewhat puckered, but will loosen up. They also repaired her tear duct and we will see when everything heals, if it works properly. She had an "extra" tear duct (that didn't do anything) on her cheek and that is now gone.

Because the tissue expander wasn't in quite as long as they had hoped, the tissue didn't have time to grow enough fat underneath it, so right now her cheek will look a little bit flatter on her right side, compared to her left. The fat will grow and fill in over the next couple of months.

Lilah woke up crying for her daddy, so he was allowed into the recovery room.



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On Thursday, we can remove her bandage and she can start wearing her glasses again. We will then patch her eye only at night to keep her from touching it.

On Monday, I will take her in to get the stitches removed and they will put her under anesthetic once again to do that.

By tomorrow, we expect her to be very swollen and bruised. But we are so glad that it is done and would appreciate continued prayers for healing and no pain.

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

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