Long day

Today has been a very long day. Reed was finally taken to surgery at 4:00 pm and was out of recovery and back in the room by 6:00. Dr R believes his body was rejecting the stitches and therefore created the infection. He said that this is very rare, 1 out of 400 cases. They had to open his lip and remove the stitches. He has gauze in the opening and this should come out in a day or so. No one knows how this will look when it heals but I'm only concerned about him getting well and not how he will look when this is over.

He is doing good now, eating jello and drinking juice.

God is good!

Surgery in the AM

We're back at Children's and Reed is scheduled for surgery in the morning (few hours from now). He just finally went to sleep a few minutes ago and has had a very hard night. We got here around 9:00 and they got us into a room in the ER pretty quick, but it took over an hour (and 3 people) to get his IV in. After he calmed down and we got settled into our room upstairs, we put in a movie and I held him until he was asleep. As I was putting him in bed I noticed a spot of blood on his hospital gown and Tim quickly turned on the light. His lip had ruptured and started to drain and his poor little mouth was covered with infection. We called the nurse and cleaned him up (as you can imagine this was painful). A little while later the Dr came back in to tell us the plan for tomorrow and also took 2 samples of the infection to send to the lab (I had to leave the room for this, a mama can only handle so much).
Please pray everything goes well tomorrow and that they are able to clean out all of the infection and close the wound.
Leaning on Him,
Tina

Happy Independence Day

I hope everyone has a great 4th and remembers to thank a solider today for our freedom~!

I'm very concerned about Reed's infection, it seems to be getting worse and not better. I'm going to wait until tomorrow and see how things look before making a decision about going back to the hospital.

Infected

This is not meant to gross anyone out so if you're squeamish just stop right here!

Saturday we went to Rachel's birthday party (Happy Birthday Rachel!!) at the park and had a great time. Sunday morning Reed seemed to not feel well and was pulling at his ears and being fussy. He was not running a fever but I could tell he was not his normal cheerful self.

Monday Tim took him to the ped. office to have them check out his ears and mouth (I thought it looked like he was getting thrush). The pediatrician asked about his lip and said that it might be infected. They sent us to a local surgeon to have it checked out and we were sent home around 1:00. Although I was not happy with that answer I went back to work and Tim took Reed home.

By the time I got home from work his lip looked like it had swollen even more. What's a new mom to do?? I emailed some pictures to my dear friends (thanks!!) and got the answer I knew in my heart........GO TO THE HOSPITAL NOW. So that's what we did. We threw some diapers and toys in a bag and started out on what was supposed to be a 2 hr drive to Children's Hospital. About 45 minutes into the trip we had car trouble and were delayed about an hour while Tim taped up a hole in the power steering line. We made it to the ER about 9:15 and the doctor came in to see us at 1:30 am and this is the part where I came very close to hitting the floor. Reed had just calmed down enough to fall asleep so the surgeon was able to get a good look at his mouth before deciding that it is indeed infected. He then started squeezing on Reed's incision site until his lip popped open and started to drain. The sight of my poor baby laying there in pain and being squeezed on and the smell from the drainage did me in. By this time I had picked Reed up off the bed and was trying to calm him down; I had to hand him to Tim and sit in the corner of the room because I knew I was about to pass out. The doctor was apologetic and said that he hated to cause Reed to be in pain but he had to find out how much infection was in his lip.

We were admitted around 2:30 and spent 2 nights in a very small room while Reed received antibiotics through an IV every 6 hours.

I feel like a bad mom but they told us not to clean his nose to make sure we did not pull on the sutures. He had so much drainage coming out of his nose it was just horrible.

Here's what it looks like today.
I'm still very concerned because the infection is now draining out of his lip where it is peeling. I pray the antibiotics keep working and the infection is completely gone soon.

Day 8

Everything looks good except Reed's nose won't stop bleeding. We made the mistake of cleaning it out and every day we would have to keep cleaning and wiping his nose. I finally called the doctor's office today and they said that we should not clean his nose at all. Leave the blood and sinus drainage alone! Oops, we didn't realize we were probably pulling on the sutures. Hopefully the bleeding will stop soon. As you can see from today's pictures he is still drooling a lot so we're changing clothes several times a day! Note to all you cleft mommy's- to- be.......leave the scabs alone until everything is healed and the sutures have dissolved :)

Day 4 and 5

My sweet boy looks so different. I didn't realize I would be so sad to see him change, I guess it's just because he looks like a little boy now and not my little baby anymore! Wow how time is flying by.

Day 4:

Day 5:

Happy Father's Day Tim, we love you!

Day 1 and 2

Ready to go home-
Today was a good day. We're working through the changes and Reed is such a trooper. He is drooling a lot, probably because everything is still swollen. He went through 4 shirts today, each one was soaked even with a bib over it. Oh, and this may sound strange but it was easier feeding him before the surgery than it is now. With his lip closed I can't tell if he's chewing good and it scares me- he tries to eat so much so fast that he almost gets choked. Sleeping is also a difficult thing right now because he is used to his nose and mouth being open- now that his lip is closed he is having trouble breathing when he sleeps so mama is laying in the floor all night beside the crib listening.

Surgery day, June 16th

We're home! Thanks for all the prayers, they were heard and answered! We arrived at the hospital at 6 am and they took Reed back at 7:45. The ENT came out about 10 minutes later and said his ear tubes were now clear and they did not require replacing. At 11:00 we spoke with Dr and then they took him to the recovery room. We were able to see him around 12:30 and he looked amazing. I was so glad the nurse was holding him and talking to him because he had already started to wake up before mama got there. He was so tired he went back to sleep until around 4:00 before waking up and having a bite of jello. He got sick (not pretty, bloody mess- that's all I'll say about that) after we tried to get him to eat some dinner so we just had apple juice and water for the rest of the night. We didn't sleep much between the monitors and beepers going off all night but we were happy to be at Children's Hospital, they have a wonderful staff and took great care of us. Thank you Jesus for this amazing little boy you have placed in our care and thank you for your continued blessings!!

7 days until surgery

One week from today my baby will be forever changed. ONE WEEK, oh my goodness.
I will miss this sweet face! Please keep Reed (and mommy and daddy) in your prayers next week.

I love summer!!

I love playing with Lily Mei and Noah...........
I love playing in the water.............

I love to ride the horse around and around.........
I love summer!!