Month: April 2012

 

As you can see from the above photo Lucy really has healed up quite nicely from her surgery.  It has taken some getting used to by all of us, including Lucy.  She can open her mouth wide enough to catch a bird or two and keeping the rodent population down has been wonderful added benefit.  The other kids are getting kind of sick of all the hissing though.  Personally, I love how she purrs when I hold her!!

In all seriousness, Lucy is doing really well.  SInce I last wrote, Lucy ended up having another tooth pulled.  We let her heal up from the major dental work she had done on December 26 for a week or two before starting up her stretches again.  Once I started them up again she started to complain of severe pain in the other molar on the bottom, opposite from the one she had pulled.  This had to come out.  She did great, the Dr. was able to pull it with only the use of nitrous.  She was very brave.  All in all, having only two teeth beyond repair after not being able to open her mouth, for around two years, to properly clean them is still fantastic.  I still attribute this to the wonderful Thieves line of oral care products.

We reached a milestone back in February.  Lucy got her mouth open to 30 millimeters.  You can click on the following link to see her progress.  Lucy 30 mm Video  Shortly after this she regressed for a few weeks, but we are back up to 30 mm again.  The doctor is pleased with her progress and would like to see her be able to open to 30 mm BEFORE we do her stretches.  Right now she can open to around 27 mm before we stretch.

 

THE LITTLE THINGS

 

There are many little things that were big stressors before her surgery that now I rarely think about.  For instance, cutting up her food.  I used to have to spend a long time each meal cutting her food into tiny bits.  Also, the mess she made when she ate.  The spoons, oh the spoons, we used to have to use these tiny spoons and make sure we traveled with them everywhere we went.  Shortly after her surgery, I took a picture of her spoon regression.

 

These may not look like they get that small, but to put it into perspective the one on the far right with the pink handle is a normal baby spoon.  The third one from the right looks pretty small but it was too deep.  When her mouth became too small for the four on the right, I ended up going to Central Market and taste testing the Gelato Ice Cream and bringing all the spoons home for her.  This probably contributed to some of my weight gain!!  These were like the pretty blue one on the left.  Unfortunately, these broke very easily.  Then one day I asked the manager if I could buy a bagful of them and she ended up just giving me a bunch of the tiny white ones on the end.  These lasted us through her surgery and we still have some left.

I also no longer have to worry as much about Lucy getting the stomach flu.  Thanks to all of the wonderful essential oils, Lucy still takes every day, she has yet to get the stomach flu.  In fact, she has only been sick a few times since her surgery.  I no longer have to worry about her choking when she eats or in her sleep.  Not that I HAD to worry before, it’s just that she was at a much greater risk for it.

As time moves on, I find myself thinking about all of these little things less and less.  Sometimes I bring them to memory on purpose so that I may be truly thankful for how easy it is now.  One day I asked Lucy if she could remember what it was like when she couldn’t open her mouth.  She couldn’t!!  Thanks to all of your prayers she made it through and is not traumatized by, what should have been very traumatizing!!

 

I pray that this finds all of you doing well and that you have a very blessed Holy Week and Joyous Easter.

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie Guy