YIPPEEEEE!!! (Palate Recovery #5)

The plastic surgeon looked at Judah's repair yesterday and feels confident that this one will hold!!! Everything looks good, and in another 3 weeks the repair should still be intact...which means NO MORE PALATE REPAIRS!!! Praise God!!! Once this recovery is over we can pursue another swallow study and see if Judah is still aspirating. I can't believe that he might actually be able to move past all of this! If he doesn't aspirate with a complete palate, that changes everything for him! That means regular liquids, which means drinking fluids on his own, which means moving towards removal of the Button! OK, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but an intact repair is just the beginning:)

On Monday, the ped. said the upper respiratory stuff is related to the fluid behind Judah's ear drums. He's on a short course of antibiotics and we can start weaning him off the breathing treatments again. I also found out that Judah might be able to have his eye and tube procedures done at the same time. So, we don't realize the "dream" of just 1 procedure. I'm OK with that, because just 1 anesthesia is better any day...and they're both outpatient, so yay!

Speaking of the eye stuff... I got a copy of the letter that Judah's ophthalmologist sent to the surgeon, so I now have the diagnoses written down! All of the individual eye complications have been put under an umbrella diagnosis called "congenital fibrosis of the extraocular musculature". Meaning: developmental delays of the eye muscles from birth. (I think.) I also found out in this letter that his geneticist thinks he has a type of "holoprosencephalic syndrome with polydactyly hypopituitarism and clefting of the palate". All I understand of that is extra fingers, no pituitary gland and cleft palate. We'll have a chance to talk to her at Judah's annual Boys Town visit with his craniofacial team next week.

Judah is doing a little better each day. 3 nights out of the last 7 he slept until 4:30 before coming into our bed. [So thankful for that nice, big king-sized bed!] Last night he ate his 1st full supper since surgery, too! He still consistently refuses breakfast...but he's never been a big breakfast person anyway. Not sure how that happened! I mean, he is a Stewart after all, and we Stewarts love our breakfasts!

Forgot to mention 2 other reasons to celebrate!

- Judah loves to pray! When Jared says "let's pray" he holds out his hands to be held, and then usually giggles his way through prayer. I wish I felt such delight at the thought and act of prayer!

- He tries to put on his socks! It's so sweet when he holds out his cute little foot and tries to figure out how to get that sock on:)