Monday, August 31, 2009

Surgery over

Kelly's cleft palate surgery is over and at this point a success. Acually we won't know if it was successful for a few months, but so far so good. She had the tubes put in her ears, and her palate closed on Friday, and we were discharged on Sat!! Only one night in the hospital, a record short time, thank goodness. While they took good care of us at the hospital, it was so VERY noisy, crowded, busy, and uncomfortable. Fortunately Kelly came thru the surgery with flying colors, and her bleeding stopped by Sat. and pain tolerance was great, so home we came. She is doing really very well considering, but the whole thing is so very painful and the "no-no"s so very annoying that it's best we are here to distract her with whatever we can. She is sleeping well, it's just tolerating the arm restraints and eating that are the trouble. She is in pain when she eats and drinks (not surprisingly) and VERY angry that she can't feed herself, can't eat what she wants, and of course we can't explain it to her, poor thing. Ah well. 10 days to go till the no-no's are off, and the pureed food is done...but who's counting! Meds will be stopped in four days, so that will help too.
Thank you all for your kinds wishes and especially those of you bringing food!!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Chillin in my room with my dog and sisters







Busy week coming up

We've got a busy week coming up this week. We are hosting Cory's Crew team's Seniors dinner Monday, Ron and I will be going out on Sunday and we will have a sitter (not one of Kelly's sisters!), the Sikoras will be traveling from Oregon and we will see them Tues. for dinner, Wed. all day and evening is our annual High School friends dinner here (can't wait) and Friday early is Kelly's surgery (with pre-op bloodwork on Thurs. ick) Whew. Most all of it is really good stuff. The surgery I could skip, but it needs to get done ASAP and this was the first available time. Luckily we will be able to combine the palate work and the ear tubes in one surgery. We expect to stay at the hospital for 2-3 nights. Poor Baby! Thank goodness she doesn't know what is about to happen to her.
I've been trying to go through some of the paperwork and photos we collected on our trip to China and I'm noticing how seldom Kelly smiled in the photos! She smiles all the time now, and is so happy most the time it's hard to remember when she didn't.
We also will be trying to fit in an additional ABCme Sign class. She was invited to go, and it's a wonderful class for infants thru 5 yrs. old learning American Sign Language. She has picked up SO many signs and was invited to attend this last class where the local cable network is filming a segment on the class. Should be fun! I'll post more if it looks like the segment will air anywhere but right here. Glad we are doing the class, not that she'll be signing much her whole life, but it really helps now with communication, otherwise we'd all be pulling our our hair in frustration with trying to guess what she wants to tell us. So far we are still on just a few sounds, although I think we are finally getting "uh oh" when things fall, but it's not very clear. Might even finally have "Mama", and mean it! Slowly, slowly.
Off to order some pictures and organize food for the team!
Beth

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

"borrowing" her sisters' headbands


She LOVES the dogs


They had corn on the cob in Zhengzhou...


Some new pictures for you!
We are all doing well. Cory is off to UC Berkeley for camp, Jamie is leaving for Catalina, Ron is busy at work and Kelly and I hold down the fort at home. We spent the weekend at the beach with Grandma and Grandpa, and meeting Uncle Steve, Aunt Amy and cousin C. J....and Kelly loves to play with C.J., finally a "kid" to play with! Lots of sand and sun, just the thing for the first of Aug.
Kelly is continuing on the rounds of Dr. appt.s getting ready for her surgery on the 28th. We are screening for hearing, speech, motor developement and anything else they think of. She seems to still be fine on the cognitive developement, learning signs faster than I do, and out smarts me in typical toddler fashion daily. As you can see by the corn on the cob picture, Kelly enjoys her food. She is eating most things, especially if cut up very small, or soft, but is managing other things too, like the corn.
I finally got some help to up load some pictures, and have posted a few of daily life. I'll try for more now that I've got a file going and the correct computer!