Emma the Brave

Emma had her 6th surgical procedure a little over a week ago. She was feeling extra brave in pre op since her American girl doll got a new outfit for this trip to the "rainbow hospital."

This visit to the OR was for T tubes and a sphincter pharyngoplasty.  Due to Emma's complicated cleft palate, it has taken multiple attempts to get enough closure in her mouth for proper speech. Without proper closure, the air just goes out of her nose instead of out her mouth with enough pressure to make the sounds correctly. This procedure basically closed off her throat except for two openings the size of her nostrils so she can breathe. She did amazingly well during surgery and in her recovery and we were able to be discharged after a one night's stay. She is back on the soft foods diet for 6 weeks and then we will proceed from there with lots and lots of speech therapy. She has developed some lazy speech habits due to her physiological deficits, so it will be a process to get her to use her mouth in the correct. We are able to hear her say sounds she could not say before but she is still hypernasal. Hopefully it will improve and we can take a break from surgeries for a little bit. 

She is just so tough. We are always on the same floor during recovery so it is nice to see so many familiar faces. We had a new nurse this time and when we described Emma as a beast when it comes to recovery, she laughed and said she had already heard the exact same description from all the nurses. We love the staff on 2C!

We are so blessed to have an incredibly gifted surgeon and precious staff at Batson, but we are all excited when we hear the magical words that we are free to go home! (Even if Emma doesn't look so excited in this picture. She was not happy when they took out her "magic button" IV so she was not feeling my picture.)

That's better!  Let's go home!

The staff at Nelson Home Health is pretty spectacular as well!

We are thrilled to have this one behind us and now we can enjoy the rest of our summer. So, so proud of this little girl. She is absolutely amazing!