Scar Management

Miss Eden's healing process is going very well. We went to the hospital last Tuesday and they said that her wound is healed! Yay!! So we've moved from wound care to scar management. That is all very good news.

However, I don't think we knew what we were in for with "scar management." They told us it means massaging her scars for at least 5 minutes at a time, twice a day. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Well... Eden hates it. The forearms she can deal with - not really a big deal, though it makes her a little nervous. But head toward her palms and she fights and cries, kicks and screams and yanks her hands away. Tuesday evening I did it by myself (after being told by the OT that we needed to massage harder or her scars would start to really be thick and unmanageable) and that resulted in both of us sobbing and holding each other at the end.

Bryan, the next morning, when he had the job to himself, came up with a brilliant idea: distraction. And what better distraction than a boy band for preschoolers?

Oh, the Wiggles. Yes, she does still hate the palm massage, and yes, she does still kick and scream, but less so... and she calms down ever so easily - and honestly, so do I - with their happy songs and colorful videos playing! (It helps, I think, that she is normally not allowed to watch TV - it's weird that she's so mesmerized, but we're glad!) Thank you Zek for sending the video!

72 hour sale...

Southwest is having a HUGE sale on airfare right now... but ONLY until TOMORROW, OCT 29!

Flights at $25 (0-374 mi); $50 (375-549 mi); $75 (550-999 mi); and $100 (1000+ mi) when you fly on Dec 2-16 and Jan 5 - Feb 10.

I think we're going to come home for Christmas a little later this year. It will make our whole family's airfare (taxes included) under $500!! That's what we usually pay for one ticket!

(Anyone want to come to Boston in early December??)

You're welcome.

EDIT: Did you buy tickets? Just got ours... We'll be in OK mid-January!

Happy Naptime!

So... work has been insanely busy lately. I didn't see Eden at all on Monday, which was the first time in a year I had completely missed her awake. Tuesday we went to the hospital for her doctor's appointment and got excellent news - no more surgery for our baby for at least another couple of months! Yay!

After the appointment I headed right to work, and rushed home, arriving at about 7:00 to find this:

Yes, my daughter, who usually goes to bed at about 8:00-8:30pm, fell asleep in her highchair before even taking the first bite of her grilled cheese sandwich. And the best part? Daddy caught the whole thing on video!

Again...

7:00 Tuesday morning, October 20, almost exactly one month after surgery #1, the surgeon will decide whether to go forward with surgery #2. We are to come to the hospital prepared for it, and if he says it's a go, it's a go, right then and there.

A little dime-sized spot in the center of Eden's palm is still not healed. Another graft may be in our future.

As I was leaving for work this morning

I heard the sweetest thing:

Buh Bye... Eye yuh you....

Seriously? Omigoodness. Knock me over with cuteness.

Eden has fingers again!

OK, to be fair, she always had fingers, she just couldn't use them because they were covered in her dressings. But today her fingers were sprung from their gauze prison, and little Eden re-discovered picking up Cheerios the old way and feeding herself, holding toys in one hand, and all other sorts of fine motor magic.

The doctor's appointment went as well as we could possibly hope today. The doctor said that her hands look great. She won't need surgery anytime in the near future, as far as he can tell. He also authorized much smaller bandages, so her fingers and forearms are exposed now. And he said we could give her a bath - she hadn't had a bath since September 9. That's 27 days.

All day long I was looking forward to giving that little girl a bath. I was totally fixated on that little tiny detail - it was the thing I couldn't wait for. I left work and skipped to the T, came home and scarfed down my dinner so that we could get to it. She loved the bath, just like normal. She splashed and giggled and smiled and loved on her ducks! I know it seems strange, it seems so little, but that was such an amazing moment. For some reason it became the symbol of the beginning of the end of this whole ordeal, and I get all teary-eyed just thinking about it.

It's almost a little weird to see her use her hands like it's no big deal. It's amazing that she can just pick right back up where she left off, but I'm so used to her having to struggle that it's strange to see her do things with such ease. But it is beautiful.

I am so thankful that God has answered our prayers and healed our baby.

15 1/2 months

Sweet Eden,

This is not a milestone post, you're not at any particular age necessitating an update on yourself, you're just amazing and I wanted to let you know. This past almost-month has been difficult, to say the least. You've been through a lot; we all have. But you are such a trooper. Instead of being frustrated about all the things you can't do, you're figuring out new ways to do them (like eating Cheerios - you lick your unbandaged thumb and stick it to a Cheerio to pick it up). Instead of being weirded out by your bandages, you're falling in love with your reflection.

And you're taking the opportunity to take huge strides in language development. You've learned so many new words over the past month! You can now say no; duck ("duh"); mama; dada; mommy (my favorite!); daddy; uh-oh; hi; bye; eye; night-night ("nigh-nigh"); "this" (which, accompanied by a point, means you want something); hot (when you spit out your food); balloon ("ba-oon"); ball ("bah"); woah; whee; and most recently, "daaaaisy" (for whoops-a-daisy - Angela gets credit for that one!). I also think you can say Nino but I'm not certain because you've only done it once and it might have been an accident.

You have learned that food coming out of the microwave is hot, and if you see us blow on it to cool it off before we give it to you, you blow on it before taking a bite. Then you spit it out and say "hot." If I tell you it's not hot and offer it again, you smile and eat it. This is what happens with every bite.

Also, though it's been somewhat overshadowed by all the drama of the last month, you had your first camping trip over Labor Day weekend. I am so glad we had that trip, that we made those memories. You loved camping. You got incredibly dirty, you walked all over the campsite, pushed the stroller around, and made piles of pinecones. We went to the lake nearby and you got in with me and splashed like crazy. Then we saw a real duck - you LOVE ducks, and you were chasing it and saying "duh! duh! duh!" and trying to catch it. It was faster than you, though, and ran away. I love that moment.

You amaze me, Little One, and I hope you know how loved you are - by your Mommy and Daddy, by the people around you (and around the world!), and most of all by your Father in Heaven.

Keep surprising us, Love, and keep getting better.

Love,

Mommy

You had me at "Hi"

Just a little glimpse into our days at home post-surgery:

This cracks me up. (And I know my family back home is thinking she takes after her mama.... :))

It's so comforting that Eden is so happy and normal. We are so blessed with such a strong, brave little girl! Bryan and I are both heading back to work tomorrow, leaving Eden in Angela's capable hands. We will see what next Tuesday brings (the surgeon will make a decision at that point about more grafting - for now we're changing dressings at home).

Trying to Trust

Yesterday was a tough day, emotionally, for me. First of all, Eden didn't sleep well. She was awake from 4:00-5:30 crying - she's been so used to being held whenever she cries that she's completely spoiled. Our good sleeper now needs sleep training, which completely stinks. I am so thankful that we never had to do this when she was little, but it's still hard to listen to her cry and know that if I just went in there and rocked her, she'd sleep. But I keep thinking of that whole give-a-man-a-fish/teach-a-man-to-fish thing and realizing that I need to let this run its course.

Because none of us slept well, 7:30 came very early. Bryan brought Eden into bed with us and we were snuggling as a family when I realized she had bled through her bandage and the hospital sock on top of the bandage. I was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen. I called the hospital and they asked us to bring her in for dressing take-down a day early.

Turns out Eden has hematomas on both of her palms. This may or may not be (but probably is) impeding the grafts from attaching in those areas. We are headed back to the hospital today for another look by Eden's actual surgeon, but from what yesterday's attending surgeon told us, the likely outcome is more surgery. This is hard for us because we thought we were going to be coming out of this nightmare this week. I was planning to go back to work on Thursday (I still might, depending on how today goes and what the surgeon decides to do). We are getting a little bit impatient for this to be over, to be able to return to normal life. But I know that God has a big plan, bigger and better than ours. I am trying to completely trust Him in this - I know that He's in control and that He should be (and I shouldn't!). But I am struggling with impatience. This is probably a sign of my imperfect trust, my inability to completely turn over control of the situation. I'm trying, Lord!

We are praying that today the hematomas look miraculously better (the one that was bleeding yesterday doesn't seem to be bleeding as badly today) and there will be no more grafting right now. But we are also trying to be prepared for them to look worse, for surgery to be certain, and for a longer battle with this nightmare.

As I type this I keep thinking of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. This is where I am trying to turn my heart every day:

Daniel 3:15-18
"Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, very well But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?"

Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."

This Shane & Shane song (aptly titled "Burn Us Up") says it in an amazingly powerful way:



The point is, if Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego can face certain death in reliance on God's plan, and recognize even in the face of a firey furnace that following God does not mean that our comfort is paramount but that His glory IS, our little family can deal with a slightly longer healing period for our baby girl.

On the Flip Side

Here we are, on the flip side of surgery.

Everything went well, and as expected. The surgeon who worked on her is a plastic surgeon who is very well known for his work on hands. What a blessing! He is very optimistic. He did sheet grafts on both palms (the entire right palm and a u-shape on the left palm), a triangle on her right forearm, a small, very thin graft on her forehead, and a few "scraps" in some of her fingertips.

She came out of surgery just fine. The breathing tube made her throat really sore and she was pretty croupy, which was scary, but they just kept an eye on her and she was fine. She slept pretty much all day Tuesday, and all night Tuesday night. Wednesday after lunch they sent us home.

It was so great to be home, and to know that we're done with this nightmare for at least a few days. No daily trips to the hospital for torturous dressing changes. Those were getting to be unbearable for all three of us. We don't have to go back until Tuesday, when she gets the primary dressings removed.

Eden is pretty much herself - she is eating well (thankfully) and learning new words every day again. She is learning to use her hands and only occasionally gets frustrated at something she used to be able to do that she just can't now. But she is happy, and hilarious, as usual. And we are so thankful for that.