Doing Well

Josie is home and doing very well. She is pretty much back to herself as long as we keep up on the pain medicine. We were released mid-day yesterday and Grampa Scott picked us up from the hospital. This week is one of the toughest of the month for Chad to take off, so Grampa was a big help picking us up. Josie was so glad to get home and see Henry and Gramma. She slept fairly well last night and so far has been busy playing all morning. Grammy Stewart came today and both kids were excited to see her. Gramma Scott headed home to get some much needed sleep after hanging out with Henry. He sure enjoyed his time with her.

On a surgery update, everything pretty much went according to plan. Botox injections went smooth and the revision around her g-tube looks good. The endoscopy of her stomach was reassuring. There was no obvious inflammation and her fundoplication surgery appears to still be intact. The ENT spent a little longer working on her than we were expecting which was a little nerve racking to wait for. Josie's left ear has a fairly large perforation that hasn't healed enough to get a new tube, so they were only able to put one in her right ear. We will have to save the left ear for another surgery down the road. The gel-foam injection went well, too. Basically, Dr. Latz, the ENT, is trying to repair a hole (cleft) that is near Josie's vocal cords. This hole allows liquid and food to get into her airway. To fix this, they trim some tissue and cover the hole with it. To make it stronger they put gel foam behind the tissue. This foam slowly dissolves over the next few months as the tissue becomes stronger on it's own to cover the hole. We did this surgery in January and the Josie's body healed in a way that the tissue just went back to it's original state, exposing the hole again. They did a little extra work to hopefully prevent this from happening the next time. This is the last time that we can do this surgery so we are praying that it works this time. We should know in about 6 - 8 weeks if it worked. Overall, Josie had a pretty good recovery in the hospital. As she likes to do, she scared the recovery room team by dropping her oxygen and heart rate when they gave her some IV pain medication after surgery. They had to get the anesthesiologist involved to get her stats back up to a safe range, which is scary. They allowed me to come in the recovery room and sooth her for about an hour before she was stable enough to go to a regular room. The recovery room nurse was very good and noticed how calm Josie was when I was holding her. She ordered us a regular bed, so I could sleep with Josie instead of a crib. The night was much more comfortable for all of us then it has been in the past. Chad had his own bed and Josie and I shared a bed.

We were greatly impressed with the ENT throughout the whole experience. She stayed in the recovery room for a large part of the time monitoring Josie's breathing and pain management. There really weren't any other doctor's in there doing that for their patients. We also had some confusion on what pain medication Josie should have once we got to the room and Dr. Latz came right up to the floor to make sure Josie was getting what she needed even though it was seven at night. It is so important to have a physician that understands your child's needs and makes sure that they are met.
This weekend we are going to spend some time with Grammy Stewart and Chad and I will celebrate our 5th anniversary. Hard to believe it has been 5 years, seems like Chad has been a part of me forever. We are sure blessed with creating a wonderful family over that time.