Hope's Surgery updates

Hope has gone thru several surgeries at Children's Hospital in Seattle ,WA. and they have done a remarkable job on her. When we received her in China she could not swallow her own spit. I had to teach her to do that she drooled constantly but i think this was because of neglect in the orphanage. She had to learn how to chew food as she did not know how to do this. We ate with impressioned forms of teeth at the table every mealtime to teach her the chewing motion inside our mouths when we eat food. Most of her food came out her nose when we put it in her mouth. Over time and after her first surgery here in Montana it god a little better but she dealt with severe sinusitus caused from food contamination. She spent the first 5 years on Antibiotics most of that time. She started Speeh when we got home from China in 1997 and graduated from it in 2002. She still slurs some of her words when she is in a hurry but her speech is very legible. It has always been good. She did not talk or say her first word until she was probably 3.5 The first word was Mama and Baba (which means daddy in Chinese)What a great sound for me.
She is a very strong and brave little girl and handles all the procedures, surgeries and many doctor appointments with ease. She is used to it now but at times asks me why she has to do this. She is older and realizing that most kids don't have to go thru this. But i tell her this is her package and God is there with her all the way.And when you are done you will be the most gorgeous Chinese girl. She is very happy with her new look of her lip and nose and loves her nose. She was worried she would have a big Italian nose like her dad.
In December of 1997 she had her hard palate repair. The only procedure done thus far was the lip repair at age 1 year in China. We had the hard palate repair done in Kalispell, MT and by March of 1998 they were doing her soft palate repair. During this procedure they closed her esofagus (sp?) too small about the size of a small green pea. In the next year she went for a sleep apnea test in Spokane and was confirmed that she stopped breathing 275 times that night while sleeping. We had to put her on a Apnea Monitor at home every night when she was sleeping. She would take it off at night and for a while we had very restless nights and i slept on her floor. She wore this for a year or so. I felt we needed to go to a hospital that was a teaching hospital that did more up to date procedures so i got on the internet and searched out hospitals in L.A. area and Seattle because we had family and friends in those areas. I found the Cleft Palate Foundation web site and searched on that for those 2 areas and found Children's Hospital in Seattle. I call and made appointments then. When we arrived in March of 1999 for our first visit the head doctor Dr. Cunningham asked me how i found them from Montana and i told him how i searched for them on the internet. He said "Oh! I was not aware we were on there."We then stayed in the hospital that night for a sleep test. It confirmed what they thought. In the last procedure in Kalispell the doctor got the esofogus too small and it was obstructing her breathing so in they go to fix it. We went back by November of 1999 to do this procedure. It helped her breathing at night and we could stop the Apnea Monitor at night which she was thrilled about. Our next visit to Children's was in March-April of 2000, we were leaving for China in June and had to wait on the next step for her for a while. So in 2001 we went back and we had her speech analized and it was assumed that she needed a scope put down her throat to see the air flow thru her nasal while speaking. they put this tube up and down her nostrils and it had a camera on it and it taped her while speaking words with this in there. It hurt me watching this but i had to keep her calm during this. They figured out that she needed the Pharyngal flap surgery (November 2001)for this which we did and they also undid one of the surgeries done in Kalispell so her muscles in the palate could work together for her speech. In November of 2004 Hope underwent her bone grafting surgery. They took bone from her left hip and placed it in her cleft area on both sides. This was very painful and we were in the hospital for 3 days. Once she was walking she did good but hated me for making her do the walking. Her thrill was the day she could ride in the wheelchair.We had a bit of a break for surgeries until this year where they did the lip revision on March 28th and then the rhinoplasty (nose) surgery in July 18th,2006. So total so far she has had 10 surgeries or procedures as they call them. We are not finished yet as she is not done growing yet. As things grow on her her jawline also grows and changes. But for a while this stage is done now onto the pulling of teeth and orthodontics. They have alot of work to do there and she will have severalteeth removed as soon as we can.....Until next time... Well here we go again...Not much time has passed wince i wrote this. She produced 2 Fistulas in her palate front that have to be closed as they are causing some problems. She is a bit scared this time and the procedures they need to do at this part of the game is not good. They are talking about a tissue graft possibly from the tongue. Ouch!!!! We are hoping to do this by Thanksgiving or Christmas.