Dylan had the surgery to repair his soft cleft palate on June 13th. He also had his ear tubes replaced and a neurological hearing test done while he was put under. Thank God the hearing test came back perfect!
The recovery was tough, the first day it was absolutely horrible to see him with blood pouring out of his mouth and hooked up to the IV, he was scared to swallow so he ended up needing oxygen too, that night DH and I took turns holding him and rocking him, he needed morphin because nothing else was helping and he let us know as soon as it was wearing off. The stupid IV stopped working (which sucked because it took them several tries to get it right, and the poor little guy was all bruised up already) and they had to call someone in to replace it. Luckily, he got it on the first try.
The next day he was doing better, he had to wear arm restraints so he didn't put anything in his mouth... He started taking liquids from a syringe so by that evening he was able to ditch the IV. Which was really nice because we could move around the hospital room with him instead of being in the one place. We were originally supposed to stay 3 nights, but they let us go home the next day.
Unfortunately, he decided he wasn't going to drink from the syringe or from a regular cup (the only 2 options we had) so for 2 days we had to force feed him what we could to keep him from needing to go back in and get another IV for dehydration. It was so sad, he was so weak and lifeless. Luckily the 3rd day home he started to accept the syringe for drinking. Once he was able to start the stage 1 & 2 foods again and baby cereal (we just couldn't insert the spoon very far) things got a lot better. He still hated the syringe but he took it. 2 weeks after the surgery he was able to start a bottle again, so that was really nice!
Today we had his second follow-up visit and we got the OK for things to go back to normal! He still has a couple stitches that need to dissolve, but it looks great and he no longer needs the arm restraints (until now we had to use them at night, and during the day if we weren't right by him to make sure that he didn't put ANYTHING in his mouth) so he can put his fingers in his mouth again, have his sippy back and eat whatever we are eating. It is such a relief to have this behind us.
I just pray that this is the end of it and he never requires another surgery like it. Hopefully he won't have to have speech therapy (some kids do and some don't with this.)
Other than that we are just waiting for him to get teeth and start walking! I hope now that he can start chewing on things again he will be able to break in his first tooth!
Thanks for reading!
Dylan's Surgery Update
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