Monday 14 November 2016

Cleft gum repair

Today's the day of the bone graft/ gum repair. Feels like a long time coming; since the flurry of activity on this blog in the beginning, life has just become life and cleft stuff doesn't really feature. But I do remember thinking about the nice long break between the palate op and the one Piet Haers is about to start in about an hour from now. That's just under 8 years which has passed in approximately four and a half minutes and here we are back in the same ward of the amazing Lady Evelina hospital waiting for hopefully the last major operation of Jake's cleft journey.

The surgeon will make an inch long incisions into his left hip and borrow a bit to put into the gap he left (on purpose) back in 2009. This will fuse with the rest of the gum and give him a strong foundation for his teeth which are slowly getting straighter and straighter via the brace. I'd imagine that'll come off within the not too distant future.

It's different this time as we're perhaps a little less worried and Jake is more worried; well, he wasn't at all worried last time on account of his being nine months old and had no idea what day it was let alone that he was having major surgery. Less worried is maybe not the right expression and perhaps more experienced is how we feel compared to last time. Jake's main concern is the lack of football for six weeks after the operation and he's been typically cool about the whole thing apart from understable concerns over any pain he'll have. When he wakes up he'll have a morphine button to self medicate through the night and then should be ready to come home tomorrow tea time.

I'll post some photos later.