A Little Blessing: Pharyngeal Flap Surgery

Monday, July 18, 2016

Pharyngeal Flap Surgery

So this surgery was a hard one! I haven't seen my little man in so much pain since his palate repair when he was one. The pharyngeal flap surgery was to help correct his speech and prevent him from losing air through his nose when he talks. Surgery was in Columbus and he stayed overnight. He was in quite a bit of pain and needed pain meds every few hours to help manage the pain right after surgery. Recovery consists of soft diet for 3 weeks, no speech therapy for 3 weeks during recovery, and no sports/low activity level for 3 weeks as well.

Walking into the hospital the day of surgery like a champ!

Picking a prize from the ocean room

Recovery...

At home a few days post op

Grandma always gets the best gifts :)

1 comment:

ChristinaJuly 16, 2018 at 12:51 PM
Hey! What were some of his favorite foods post op? My little one(5) is going in tomorrow :s
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Oral-facial clefts are birth defects in which the tissues of the mouth or lip do not form properly during fetal development. In the United States, clefts occur in 1 in 700 to 1,000 births, making it one of the most common major birth defects. Clefts occur more often in kids of Asian, Latino, or Native American descent.
The good news is that both cleft lip and cleft palate are treatable. Most kids born with these can have reconstructive surgery within the first 12-18 months of life to correct the defect and significantly improve facial appearance. http://kidshealth.org/

I remember going in for my 20 week ultrasound. I was so excited to find out if I was having a boy or a girl. My midwives told me that so far all of my labs and vital signs were picture perfect for a pregnancy. Then it happened...I saw the ultrasound tech's face turn serious. She kept taking more and more pictures of my son's face, but wasn't saying anything. With my medical background I knew the possibilities; I finally came out and asked..."What's wrong?","Is there a cleft?". The ultrasound techs aren't allowed to really say anything until it is confirmed by a doctor, but she did say she wasn't sure. Tears began to roll down my face, but I was trying to stay strong. My daughter was with me and I didn't want her to be scared. More and more pictures were taken. I was then asked to wait 4 weeks before I came back to get another ultrasound. This would allow my baby more time to grow and then confirm what they thought...my baby was going to have a cleft lip and palate. I was devastated, but there was nothing I could do. I searched online for any information and pictures I could find to satisfy my desire to learn more. I had no family history of this birth defect. I was referred to a high risk doctor for further evaluation...from there my world began to fall apart. The more and more they checked my baby inside my womb, other concerns began to develop. As it turned out, my little boy was not measuring "normally" and the doctor was worried about a form of skeletal dysplasia, specifically - achondroplasia. For those of you who don't know, this is the most common type of dwarfism. They sent me to a neonatologist to learn more about different types of skeletal dysplasia. Some skelatal dysplasias are lethal, but most have a good prognosis. This was the point when I opted for an amniocentesis to rule out a diagnosis of achondroplasia or chromosomal defect. I felt I needed to do this to prepare myself for what was to come. I had hit my ultimate low...what was wrong with my baby growing inside of me...would I finally have him and lose him all too soon...what did I do wrong...why is this happening to me? Many more weeks of anxiety and anticipation...and then the amnio results came in. Everything was normal!...(Sigh of relief). Still feeling nervous, not sure how my baby will look or what the severity of the cleft will be, but am definitely more hopeful at this point.

A Little Blessing