Surgery update

We are now one week past surgery and Ella is doing amazingly well. Since the surgery was done through her nostrils there is no wound care. By looking at her you wouldn't know she just had surgery. She is now almost back to normal. Now the plan is to just wait for a few months for the new airway to heal. Then we will spend a night in the hospital with a cap on her trach to see how she handles breathing without the trach. If all goes well, we will take the trach out. One of the best things will be to hear Ella's voice. Now we can see her laughing, but we can't hear it. Of course there are sometimes benefits to your child not making any noise and I will miss a few of those conveniences, but I can't wait for her to hear her own voice. No trach will also mean about half the equipment we have now. The doctors won't take a trach out in the winter months so we hope for sometime in April! Yeah!

Surgery

I would really like to start posting again, so today I thought about what I could even say. Then it donned on me that some people might want to know that our sweet little Ella will be having surgery on Monday. The doctors will be repairing the airway in her nose. The hope is in a few months she won't need the trach anymore and life will be a little better for her.

Ella

Ella is doing so good. Her surgery for a g-tube and nissin (to prevent reflux) went well. We spent 2 weeks at the hospital. It wasn't too bad. We moved into the Ronald McDonald house and that was wonderful. The drive back and forth was hard. So we just moved the whole family up to Salt Lake. Jason commuted back for school. The kids were able to be in Ella's room, so we did our lessons in her room and then played in the playroom the a lot. I love Primary Children's Hospital because they are so kid friendly. The kids made play dough and slime, played games (Jason is awesome at fooseball), built hotwheel tracks, did medical play (I think Kieva could give me an iv if she wanted), painted more crafts then I care to name, and made friends. While there we went to the Children's Musem and a special Shrek the Final Chapter showing and party. It is so nice now that Ella doesn't have tubes taped to her face anymore. She is much happier and so cute. Yesterday I brought her back my bedroom and laid her on the bed when I walked back in I found her content and cuddled up with her dad. Kieva loves to take care of her. She even took her back to her room the other day and laid Ella on a blanket and just let her chill while Kieva cleaned her room and read. Zak is a sweetie and takes good care of Ella too. He was the first of the kids to suction her and help me change her trach. Geoffrey loves to help and take care of her as well. He will often tell me "I'm your helper remember." Jason has set an air raid alarm to remind me to give Ella her meds. Whenever it goes off Geoff comes running telling me to give Ella her medicine. Jason is so good with her. Her has rocked her for many hours and is always the one to get up with her at 5am when the nurses leave. We are starting to really figure Ella out. She is doing great.

(By the way, this was not a posed picture. I was, emphasize was, sleeping right up to the point when the flash went off two feet from my head. Not sleeping so much after the shot.-- JF)