Quick surgery recap: complete repair of the Tessier 4 right cleft, including bone transfer from skull to create a lower orbital rim. Insertion of a distractor into left cheek to move palate and bone up to where they should be.

S is healing. When she came home from the hospital, her right eye was practically swollen shut. Now we all debate whether she’ll even have a scar.

A lot of y’all saw my FB post/pity party about turning the distractor screw. We had to do it twice a day. First thing in the morning and last thing at night. Effing terrible. I curse a lot in my real life. I try to keep it clean on the internet, but it really was the effing worst thing I’ve ever done. F F F. For a lot of kids, the screw comes straight out in the front of the cheek, sort of parallel to the mouth, allowing for easy access to the screw. For S, the screw is on the underside of her jaw line, angled diagonally away from her face. That doesn’t make any sense, but basically, one parent had to hold her upside down and the other parent had to hold her face still and get in and out with the screw driver as fast as possible.

SOMETIMES THE SCREWDRIVER GOT STUCK. And we were so desperate to get it off of her, we pulled too hard, and the screw came too far out of her face. Like, if you were wearing stud earrings and when you went to take the back off, you pulled too hard and the stud went through the pierced hole. That was S’ life twice a day, with her parents doing that to her. Thankfully she’s a baby. Darling, if you find this when you can read, we’re so sorry! Your surgeon made us! It’s over now and you don’t remember it, so why are you still complaining about it?!?!

It wasn't a lasting pain, she would stop screaming after a few minutes. Which is ultimately a good thing, but it also meant that pain medicine really didn't help. You’d have to be on more than Tylenol to not notice someone punching your face. We had to do it for two weeks. It’s done now. Having those metal plates in her face and growing new bone is, we think, causing her lingering discomfort. She’s much more prone to grumpiness now than she used to be.

When the eye swelling went down, her tear drop cleft was gone. It took me a few days to get over it. Her new eye shape resembled D’s. Her surgeon was worried that her lower eyelid would start to fall down again, on account of the tissue having previously been accustomed to going wherever it damn well pleased and the new bone not being native to her face. We were instructed to massage her cheek/lower eye up for a total of 10 minutes a day. We’ve been doing that, but the lower eyelid is in fact continuing to droop down, down, down. If I’m being perfectly honest, and this is the internet so of course I am, I kind of don’t mind it? Because it looks more like face 1.0? But I also feel bad about feeling like that? Because I know it’s better for her to have a proper lower eyelid? Anyway, I alerted her nurse to what’s happening. We’ll see what there is to be done for her on this issue.

She is overall doing so splendidly, that her surgeon has already scheduled her second surgery for January 28th. He’ll take out the distractor and repair everything on the left side. Then, onto the palate! (woohoo/sad face)

I don’t know what the etiquette is on naming her doctors and nurses, but we love the whole cranio-facial team. Her surgeons, clinical and surgical nurses, and physician assistants. All the best. If anyone in central Texas is interested in them, please let me know. That’s all for now. I will soon write posts on our hospital stay, our epic disaster of an ENT appointment last week, her general development, and more.