We are home-Primary Children's

Lauren stayed the night at the hospital with Mom and Dad took the other two kids home to sleep. The hospital wanted to make sure she was taking in fluids and starting to eat. She has been on a liquid diet the last 24 hours and was hooked up to an IV to stay hydrated. She has been in some pain and is unable to eat anything solid. We have been giving her medication for the pain but it puts her to sleep. Which is probably good for her. This afternoon, a doctor came to visit and felt good about discharging her from the hospital. I don't think she wanted to stay another night and would rather be in her own bed. Last night she had trouble sleeping with the pain and the hospital staff coming in every four hours to check her pressure and temperature. I will say we have been very happy with the staff at Primary's. They do such a great job of making the stay for the children as comfortable as possible. The staff is very friendly and took the time to answer our questions.

Lauren is swollen from the surgery and can barely open her mouth. She has some bleeding and draining from the surgery but it should stop after a couple days. For the next few weeks, she will have a small tube that comes out the bottom of her jaw. This is what we use to attach the wrench to and turn daily. We will do the first turning on Saturday. We will give it three complete turns every day. This should apply enough pressure to lengthen the jaw bone 1 MM per day. Once the jaw has gotten to the desired length, we will stop turning and the tube will be removed. The small internal plates that were attached to the jaw will remain with her always. They say it usually doesn't cause further problems, but if they do, they can be removed. It just requires another surgery. Lauren is still a trooper although you can tell this causes her more discomfort than the previous surgeries.

Post Op Update- Primary Children's

Lauren just came out of surgery in the last hour and the Doctor said everything went well. She is still regaining consciousness and they have moved us and her into her room. She will have to stay at least two days depending on how quickly she starts eating and taking her medication. She was in surgery for about 3 hours with another hour for pre and post op. We are in room 3083 and will probably be there the rest of our stay.

Day of Surgery- Primary Children's Hospital

We leave for Primary Children's today for Lauren's jaw distraction surgery. It should be around 12:30 PM that she goes into the operating room. The surgery shouldn't be longer than 2 hours. She will be staying overnight at the hospital. I will let everyone know how she does and if she would be up to getting visitors. I will try to update the blog, however, our laptop has been down.

2 Month Update with next surgery looming

Lauren has been doing very well since the last surgery. So much so, that we forget that she even had the procedure done. The ear seems to be healing well and every couple of weeks we send pictures to Dr. Lewin and she is pleased with it's healing. We met last week with Dr. Motoki. He is the doctor that will be doing the jaw distraction surgery on July 28th. The surgery is intended to lengthen her jaw on the left side. She has been wearing an expander on the roof of her mouth for a few months that has been straightening out her bite and hopefully by lengthening the jaw, she will have a level bite. She will more than likely need braces when she is older. The surgery is only going to be about 2 hours long, but she will have to stay in the hospital for at least two days. They will make an incision in her jaw bone and insert internally a distractor device. This will apply pressure on both sides of the incision to help lengthen the jaw. Everything will be done through the inside of her mouth. She will have a rod that will come down on the outer side of the skin below her jaw. This will be used to turn the device once or twice daily to apply added pressure. We will have to turn the device for approximately two weeks. After that, the jaw should be the length they want it. She will wear the distractor for about 2 months total as the jaw and new bone that fills in will have to harden fully. We are happy that we don't have to travel as far and that the surgery will be less time, but this will be the first time she will have to stay overnight in the hospital. The surgery will be done at Primary's Childrens hospital.