Squeezing out Summer

We are squeezing every last bit out of summer and the transition to the new school year has begun. One of our teenagers has been gone for part of nearly every day of the last few weeks at tennis practice, and the other has been with friends or at middle school orientation this week. It looks like the start of this school year won't have me as the only melancholy member of this family. Little G will really miss her big sister and brother. A lot. I suspect they will miss her too.

This last month has been something of a language explosion for Grace. She is practicing saying new words and new sounds every day and I predict by Christmas she will be easily understood by other people than our family. She is one determined little girl and she has come such a long way since we first met one another.

We had her 2 month post-op cardiac check up this week and it took all of 15 minutes. She's doing wonderfully and her doctor is very pleased with her progress and recovery. She is now off of every cardiac medicine. She has 1ml of baby zantac twice a day (for reflux) and one puff of Qvar (inhaler to keep inflammation down in her lungs/airway). As of today she no longer needs her diuretics!! (Thank you Jesus) which will mean that her 11:30 diaper won't suddenly be sagging to her knees. Ahem.

In other exciting news, she is now about 17.25 lbs. We've broken a new record and evidently the chocolate pedia-sure and chocolate coconut milk is paying off slowly but surely. We suspect that she has a slight lactose intolerance, which is quite common in Chinese people so we are keeping dairy in small doses and not too close to bedtime. This makes for a solid 8:30pm-ish - 7:30pm-ish  night's sleep.

September and October will be big months for Grace. Mid September she will have her highly anticipated appointment with the airway/digestive clinic at Children's Hospital. There, we will meet with a team of doctors who will help us get a handle on the anomalies with her floppy trachea and narrow esophagus. At this clinic here is a speech and language specialist, our ENT, our pulmonary and cardiac specialists and they ALL WORK TOGETHER. Let us all rejoice and give thanks and praise. Amen. I can hardly wait.

The following week we will have the orthopedic visit which is her next really big thing. Grace has an exclamation mark on her chest from her chest tube and incision, and her spine is more of a question mark shape. Her spine curves both ways. The "S" curve of scoliosis and also a slight but noticeable outward curve (kyphosis) in her lower back. It's possible he might recommend early repair in the hope that it would save her from a more significant surgery involving rods to straighten her spine. It's possible it will be a "let's wait and see how she is in a year". I'm trying not to worry about it. It certainly doesn't seem to slow her roll - she can hardly keep up with her fast little legs and climbs every chance she gets. I'm praying for a mind-blowing healing of her spine that puzzles the masses. Nothing would please me more.

October 7th she is scheduled for a pit stop in the operating room:

1. ENT will perform a rigid bronchoscopy for a better picture of her airway/trachea.
2. ENT will clean out her flaky asian earwax and examine whether or not tubes would be warranted.
3. GI/Invasive radiology will perform an endoscopy (esophagus scope) and a dilation of her esophagus (open the narrow place caused by her surgery at 3 weeks of age with inflated balloon) so that hopefully food won't get stuck any more. At it's narrowest it's about the diameter of a pencil. This makes eating somewhat challenging. 
4. Cardiology will perform an echocardiogram to make sure everything is still cool with her repair. 
5. I think that's it. 

This will all be done in an operating room under general anesthesia. It should take a few hours and the risks are minimal. Please pray that her scar tissue is soft and will cooperate with the dilation. It's pretty scary when food gets stuck in her esophagus. I've had to gag her several times and it's no fun for either of us. She really loves to feed herself and we try very hard to be careful with small pieces of food.  

Once the October procedures are over, she can have the rest of the vaccines she still hasn't been able to have. Once she has had those we will introduce her to the fabulous nursery at our church, and church services will be a lot less...um...distracting. 

It's hard to believe just a year ago we were beginning to move from a home where we made all of our memories to a home with an extra bedroom for a child we would bring home *someday*. Here we are one year later finally feeling settled and "home". All of us. Grace is doing wonderfully and is attaching and bonding even better than we had hoped. She is such a miracle in so many ways and I continue to be amazed that God brought us to her. Make no mistake, she rescued us as much as we rescued her.

I would do it all again, this journey to Grace. Knowing everything that I know now and all that we have survived together, we would all do it all again. Maybe we will...

Say it with me, Nothing is impossible with God.