One step back...

Just when I thought I was in the running for mother of the year…I go and mess things up.


Wednesday night we were outside playing in the driveway as daddy was cleaning up the fishing boat. I had Hill in his Baby Bjorn because he loves to feel like he’s a part of the action by looking out at everything. We were pushing the stroller in the driveway and he was being such a big boy I thought I would let him ‘pretend’ to push it on into the garage so we could go inside and eat. I guided his hands on the bar of the stroller and just as we were cracking up at what a good job he was doing….his bobble head swung forward and he popped his lip on the stroller bar across the top. I didn’t know it hit his lip because he cried for just a minute and since he was facing forward I couldn’t see his face until I walked in the kitchen and saw his reflection in the refrigerator. Oh my God! I couldn’t get him out of the Bjorn fast enough. Blood was streaming down his face from his mouth all over his clothes and splattering onto the floor. I panicked! I screamed for Chip! I was crying, Hill was crying, Chip was the only one with the mental capacity to not just flail on the floor and flip out. It busted his stitches on the inside. Not just broke the stitches, but gaped it open on the inside. I knew I had messed up all this painful past week of healing and syringe feeding in just one split second of my being silly stupid. We gave Hill his pain medicine, cleaned him up, changed his clothes, fed him and skipped bath time and put him straight to bed. I know it was an accident, but I keep beating myself up about it.

Thank goodness we had his follow up appointment the next day. I called Dr. Shell first thing Thursday morning and he said he would allot more time for us instead of just a routine checkup in case we needed to do anything. He didn’t feel the need for us to rush right in.

Hill’s appointment was at 2:30 and we were out of there by 2:45. Dr. Shell said that he’s seen this happen before and expressed no true concern to rush back into surgery or stitch it up. Although it sets us back a little, it usually heals itself with no further surgery, we hope. He expects it the gap inside to heal back together within a week. How amazing is that? Dr. Shells’ main concern with cleft lip repair is under the nose - the skin between the lip and nose – which he said was healing fine. It looks awful to onlookers. Looks like a bloody area with puss gunk coming out under his nose. Almost looks like snotty boogers under his nose. Dr. Shell said that it is not puss and it is not boogers, but some medical term that he spelled for me that starts with an ‘s’ known as tissue juice. I know, gross eah? It’s good nasty stuff. It means the tissue is healing. We keep ointment on it 3-4 times a day that makes it look like a greasy boogery mess, but whatever makes him heal best is what we are going to do! We go back in a week (on Thursday the 6th) and he said we could stop syringe feeding come Wednesday. Wednesday will be Cinco de Mayo and I may just supply Kosciusko with margaritas to celebrate the occasion of going back to the bottle (no silly not me, Hill) and maybe giving him back his Ford frog.

Thanks to my good friend Megan for suggesting we try the big medicine droppers from Wal-Mart to feed with instead of the pain in the rump syringe. Hill, like his parents, is an instant gratification type of guy. If you take the syringe out of his mouth to draw up more formula he screams. It shouldn’t take but 2.5 seconds to draw the formula up the syringe to reinsert it into his mouth…those are the longest 2.5 seconds in the world. With the big medicine dropper, which was free at Wal-Mart, you just squirt in his mouth then go to the cup squeeze the bulb and voila 0.5 seconds to stick it back in his mouth. You are the heroin of the month, Megan. Love you!

So, nutshell version of our past week. Hill was doing FABULOUS until this busted lip set back. Mommy is sorry, Dr. Shell said it was gonna be ok…thank God! We will just have to put you in a bubble and be more careful until your lip heals so that another accident doesn’t happen.

He’s still the sweet smiley boy he always is, which is wonderful. Dr. Shell said to do whatever we needed to do to make him not cry because that causes stress on the lip and we don’t want it to tear anymore. So….Ford has been temporarily replaced for the past week with his new friend, Tylenol with codine. We tried to make it just Tylenol, but that doesn’t knock out the pain. Dr. said to continue usage with the codine for at least another week.

As if I don’t ask you guys for enough already; please continue to pray for us. This setback, although minor, sure has taken a toll on all three of us. Pray that Hill has a speedy recovery and his lip heals how it is suppose to…
Mama Lou will be flying in from Texas on Tuesday and I know that will make everything better. We can’t wait to see her!