Liam's first communion

May 30th, 2009. Liam's First Communion celebration, it was a special day for him.







Some photos of our day at the Boston Dragonboat races, June 5th.

Ethan is home

We went into the hospital early yesterday morning for Ethan's palate surgery. When the surgeon got a good look in his mouth, he realized that the repair was more extensive than he had thought. Ethan had a hole in front of his teeth, behind his teeth and his palate needs to be lengthened & repaired. He was concerned about everything healing properly since fistula's are really difficult to repair, so he concentrated on the hole in front of his teeth only. It took less time and when he came out to talk, he said he would do the rest of the repair in 4-6 months time. This upcoming surgery will be more involved and he felt that by splitting them up into stages he will have a better chance of success and good healing.

So Ethan came out of surgery feeling pretty good (the surgeon had numbed everything). He only received a little pain medication, more for aggitation from the anesthesia and then we rested most of the morning in his hospital bed. In the afternoon he started getting very active. He was drinking apple juice, then using the potty, and was very determined to get all the monitors and the IV off. He succeeded in pulling his IV out and luckily they said it could stay out. When he started dancing and jumping around the room we decided to ask if we could go home. Dr. Meara was very nice to let us go, they called to check on him too. We got home just before bedtime, Ethan took him medications and fell into a deep sleep. I was so happy to sleep too after being up since 4:45am.

Today he woke up around the usual time and I haven't needed to give him anything for pain. Just don't attach a monitor to the kid and his fine! Yesterday when I kept asking if anything hurt, he only pointed to the IV and the pulseox light on his toe! He is on a soft blenderized diet and that is the biggest challenge. He wants to eat the same things as the other kids, cookies, cereal - regular food, but had to settle on applesauce. With his first palate surgery he wasn't walking or eating regular food yet, so it was not a huge challenge to feed him. This time is different... and we will be doing it again in a few short months!

I did ask the surgeon if he felt we could hold off on this next surgery (selfishly not wanting to put him through this again so soon). But he had reviewed the findings of the speech therapist and felt that we can't wait if we want him to have the best chance at developing normal speech.

Thanks for checking in on Ethan and I hope everyone is doing well. I will try to post some pictures during nap time. Patrick is off work this morning and giving me a break while I post this.