Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Praise the Lord for Complete Healing!

At first I wasn't going to blog about Abe's surgery, but the wife of Chris' mentor shared with me what her husband was praying for Abe. Once she told me that Bob was praying for Abe to be a "mouthpiece for God," I wanted to have this blog with pictures to show him when he gets older as a part of his unique story.  

The first part of our week was planned.  Abe was going to be in Lucille Packard's Children Hospital for two nights as he recovered from having his palate closed, tubes in his ears, and circumcision.  The doctors kept calling it the "blue plate special."  Abe's cleft lip was repaired in China before his first birthday, but the roof of his mouth was still completely open and needed to be closed so we could start speech therapy.  It was a long surgery, but the doctors said he did great.  

Before going into surgery

Feeling a little sleepy from the medicine. 

Our nurse, John. He was great and he loved Abe!

Right after his surgery... love that he is holding onto his panda!



Now sleeping with two pandas.  My mom found one in the gift shop, that Abe just had to have. :)

Reading with Gram

Going on a wagon ride around the hospital. 

We left the hospital on Sunday afternoon and headed home (the children's hospital is two hours from us).  My mom came up for Abe's surgery to help us during his  recovery.  For the next two weeks, we could only give Abe soft foods and not let him put anything (including his fingers) in his mouth, because it would reopen his palate.  Monday was spent sleeping and watching movies. He had a fever all day, but once it got up to 106 my mom and I were worried and we took him to the emergency room.

At first they thought Abe had pneumonia, but the next morning they realized he had a bacteria in his blood. He had a staph infection called MRSA.  None of his surgical sights were infected, so they think he had this bacteria in China and during the surgery it was released into his blood stream.  They started him on antibiotics immediately. His fever stayed high until Wednesday. Abe was so tired and didn't want to leave the bed, play with toys and of course he didn't want to eat or drink because his mouth was still sore.



It was a pretty rough week, but we know only through the power of prayer, the pretty severe bacteria stopped growing on Tuesday and it never returned.  After a pretty traumatic experience with an IV on Thursday night, we were ready to go home.  Thankfully we were assigned an amazing pediatrician and infectious disease doctor. They quickly found an oral antibiotic Abe could take at home that would treat his specific infection.  

Even though it was a rough, long week it did give Abe's a mouth chance to heal. We didn't have to worry about him putting toys in his mouth or getting upset because he couldn't eat the foods he was used to.  It was wonderful to have my sweet mom here.  She was such a blessing. She would hold Abe so I could take a shower, grab a coffee or eat dinner with Chris every night.  She loved it!! Also, every nurse and doctor that came into the room wanted to hear about Abe's adoption story.  Most of them had tears in their eyes as they listened. :) And the best part of the week... it gave Abe and I a week to bond.  Such a blessing.  I would sleep with him in his bed and every night we would go to sleep he had such a sweet smile on his face. I loved it!

So glad my sweet mom was here during the crazy week!

Abe and Gram laughing together

I love this picture. He's listening to panda's heart. 

Thank you everyone who prayed!  We definitely needed your prayers and we felt them!  I was amazed at all the comments on Facebook or messages that said their Bible Study group was praying for Abe. I also have a dear, sweet friend in Germany who was having a hard time getting ahold of me because of the time zones, so she prayed over the phone for us.  I was in tears listening to her message! Praise the Lord that we serve a God who heals! Abe is back to his usual fun self and eating everything!  We went for his post op appointment yesterday and the plastic surgeon said his mouth looks great!