April Surgeries – Rachel and Dawn
We have several back to back surgeries scheduled for this Spring with Rachel Xiong Xin‘s (above) being the first (Scheduled for the middle of March) followed by Dawn and then Charity. However, and as is often the case things did not work out as planned.
We had already finished all the preliminary tests for Rachel including her blood work up and were set for her surgery to be done the following Monday when the hospital told us she needed two months of compression therapy on her nose/gum area to force the excessive protrusion of her nose/gum area back into a more suitable position.
The doctors are afraid with Rachel’s upper gum protruding as much as is does (above left) the surgery to her lip and nose area could very easily fail. We are aware of this problem due to the fact the first surgery on Isaac Ma Shi Hao (see the page “Isaac Tugs on our Heart Strings” to learn more about Isaac) also failed for the same reason. Actually, by comparing the two side by side pictures above (Rachel on the left and Isaac on the right) one can see the great similarity between the initial problem both of these babies had when they arrived at the Home of Hope.
In Isaac’s case we started him on the compression therapy after his first surgery failed. In Rachel’s case we have delayed her surgery for two more months in an attempt to get the protruding nose/gum area to recess back a little bit so there won’t be so much pressure on the surgery area when she does have her first surgery.
When we started Isaac on his therapy we could not find a suitable device to help him so we made our own. Eventually by trial and error we came up with a good system which we are now using on Rachel.
From the look of the two pictures above it appears Rachel is in a lot of pain. She is not! She is however, highly aggravated and agitated over having to wear this thing that she never had to deal with before.
The compression device is made of soft cloth and low tension elastic. The idea is not to exert a lot of pressure but rather provide continuous, light pressure over a long period of time to pull the protruding gum/nose area back in place to some degree.
After just a few short seconds Rachel is back to normal with that great personality we have all learned to love.
Since Rachel’s surgery has been delayed for two months we moved Dawn Xiong Chen to first in line. She was scheduled to go in the end of April but now she is scheduled for April 14th.The severity of Dawn’s problem is pretty much isolated to the gum line and exterior lip area. This is also difficult but it is not as problematic in the future as the split palate often is.
As you can see by comparing Dawn’s upper palate (above left) with Rachel’s upper palate (above right) Dawn’s is pretty much in one piece as it should be but Rachel’s is split in two. The split palate often creates problems in the future with sinus and ear infections and also hinders the child to speak clearly without good speech therapy.
No two children are exactly the same. As an example, Autumn Xiong Duo speaks very clear where as Mosie Xiong En has just started speech therapy he needs in the worst way to learn to speak clearly.
Some have asked us how successful our surgery program really is. We feel it is very successful and especially when you compare the worst case situation we have dealt with in the past… that of Isaac Ma Shi Hao (see above and the picture below) and how he turned out after multiple surgeries with two left to go a couple of years in the future. We are confident Rachel’s surgery will be just as successful.
Posted: April 6th, 2008 under Surgeries.