Surgery Day

Simon is out of surgery, and he did great! No problems, his nose and lip were repaired, his soft palate and uvula were also repaired, and ear tubes were placed. His hard palate will be repaired later, probably next spring or summer. He will be evaluated every few months to see if the lip/soft palate repair is bringing his hard palate closer together.

He looks great, a little swollen in the upper lip, and he has stitches and nasal stents to maintain the new shape of the nostrils. He is wearing little velcro arm casts to prevent him from putting his hands in his mouth, and he has 2 IVs, for saline and morphine. He is still sleeping under the morphine, the nurses will try him on Tylenol with codeine later on and dial back the morphine.

If he eats well from the bottle we'll go home tomorrow. We're spending the night in the pediatric Intensive Care Unit tonight. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes and support this week, and especially to the grandparents (all 4!) for coming to wait with us today. Also, of course a big thank you to Dr. Polley and his team here at RUSH and Dr. Walner, for their great work helping Simon.

We will post pictures later on. We've been up since 2 a.m., so we're going to follow Simon's lead and take a little nap.