Finally ... Palate Pictures

Here are the before and after Palate pictures. As you can see ... before surgery, she had wide open spaces.

I am absolutely amazed at the gift Dr. Buckmiller and Dr. Hartzell have been given. To take nothing, and create a palate is a miracle. I have to say that when you look at this cleft repair team, you see the hands of God at work. God has truly given them a gift that allows them to change lives.

We went for our follow-up visit today. Dr. Hartzell seemed very pleased with her healing. We will look at having her lip repair done in 4-6 months. They want her to be healed well from this surgery. The lip adhesion also has to have time to do what it is supposed to do. It is helping to force the middle part of her lip downward, and those 2 teeth back in line (although part of that was actually done by physically pushing the teeth back into her mouth during the operation).

We have to stay on soft food until the stitches dissolve more. She's got quite a mouthful of stitches as of now. She is tolerating liquified/pureed food well...and as long as she's tolerating it, I don't have a problem giving it to her.

Her NoNo's have to stay on another week ... at least at night. We can take them off some during the day now. My vote is to leave them on as long as she tolerates them. When she graduates back to solid foods, it won't be such a big deal for her to suck on her fingers. As long as there are still stitches, I don't want to take any chances !!!!

Well. That's our update for now. She's sleeping peacefully ... and I'm about to be asleep myself. Goodnight ... will post more later.