How many surgeons does it take...

It has been about a week and a half since Cullen's surgery and he is doing really well. During the surgery the doctor removed the Latham device, repaired his hard palate and also repaired his gumline. We were expecting him to work on Cullen's lip but instead he did more work inside his mouth which has been fantastic.

When Cullen was born there was a long, wide space running down the center of his mouth. He learned to drink from a special bottle and also learned how to eat solid foods in spite of the space. Now when you look in Cullen's mouth the front half is solid tissue. There is still a V shaped space in the back of his mouth but this will be repaired later. What does this mean in practice? It means that Cullen has resumed eating solid foods and can't get enough! He is eating everything we put in his mouth, quickly and without much fuss. It also means that these boys are going to have us running to the grocery store daily so buy Kroger stock.

We met with the surgeons on Wednesday for a follow up. The unanimous review was that Cullen's palate was healing well and he was right on track. We scheduled Cullen's next surgery for September 10th. The surgeon plans to work on Cullen's lip during this surgery and the ENT will put tubes in Cullen's ears. What does this mean in practice? Hopefully no more trips to the med center for 3 months... yippeee!!!!

The funniest part of our meeting with the surgeons was when I asked them to check Cullen's ears for infection. You would have thought I was speaking German. All three of them looked at each other in panic. Check his ears??? What?? How?? I couldn't help but laugh. The lead surgeon agreed to do it but when he picked up the ear checking gadget (official term) it wasn't working. Nor did they have the little covers for it. Clearly I was the first one in a long time, if not ever, that asked them to do this. So after checking two other exam rooms we found a working ear checker and the surgeon checked his ears. He seemed pretty confident there wasn't an infection...but he obviously is not an expert at basic pediatric care so our peds doc will be taking a look.

So the answer to the question "How many surgeons does it take to check for an ear infection?" Zero. Pay the copay and go to your pediatrician. :-)

In other news, Cullen went into surgery without any teeth. 4 hours later he is sporting top two front teeth. Good thing he was on heavy hitting drugs! :-) Cullen has also learned to roll over both ways so he is now sleeping unswaddled, on his belly and/or side with his crochet blanket. Brady has given up the use of his high chair/booster and is now sitting in a regular chair at meal times. He has also agreed to start sharing his bath with Cullen which is really cute. Brady will also be moving up to the next class at school in a couple weeks. Now if we could only get him to use the potty....