Hey everyone!! Thanks for the prayers! Zach did really well through his surgery! Phil and I did pretty well too. We spent wednesday night in the hospital and came home yesterday morning. The staff at Cooks was wonderful and Zach got really good care. He was in quite a bit of pain wednesday and thursday morning but now seems alright. I'm giving him Tylenol every 4 hours and that is keeping him comfortable. Feeding him is a little tricky because he can't suck on anything and nothing can bump his lip. We have a syringe from the hospital that sort of works and he is doing well taking formula from his sippy cup. I just finished feeding him some yogurt (his first "solid" food since surgery) and the spoon didn't work well but I found that if I suck the yogurt up into a straw from Sonic and then blow it into his mouth he can get it swallowed (necessity is the mother of invention, right)!
Our only real struggle right now is that we have to really restrict Zach's activity for the next three weeks while his lip heals. This is hard for all of us and really frustrating for our little guy who really like to crawl and pull up on everything independently as well as put everything in his mouth. For the next three weeks we have to be really careful that nothing bumps or rubs on his lip. That means that he has to constantly wear elbow splints (no-nos) that hold his arms out straight so that he can't reach his mouth or nose. He is able to crawl and pull of with these on but we can't let him do that without actually having our hands on him because if he were to slip and hit his face on the floor or furniture, he could damage the repair that Dr Schuster has done. We also can't feed him anything thicker or with more texture than stage 1 baby food for the next three weeks (which means no puffs, bananas, peas, canteloupe, or thickened fruit purees). Since he can't rub his lip on anything, Zach can not sleep on his tummy or side and must be wedged into the pack and play with pillows so that he won't turn over. He is actually doing better with this than I thought he would. His biggest struggle is not being able to be held facing us with his face against us... it is a bit awkward figuring out how to hold our little robot arm baby!
We are so thankful that God brought Zach safely through surgery and we are confident that he will recover and heal well. I know that the next three weeks will seem like nothing when we look back on it in ten years but I would love it if you would continue to pray for us that all three of us would have patience and that our sweet boy wouldn't be to upset about all of his limitations right now.
Also pray for us next wednesday when Zach goes back under anesthesia for about 30 minutes to have his sutures removed.
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