Rainy days in New York

Hi everyone, welcome to the end of our first week in New York City.  We had a full day on Thursday with an appointment with Dr McCarthy's Nurse Practitioner, she is the quarterback for the entirety of Hannah's pre op, surgery and post op care.  Her name is Pat and she is a lovely lady. She has worked with this team for more than 20 years. She explained many of the details that I have been wondering about. She explained that Hannah will likely have the devise that is going to stretch the ramus bone implanted inter orally, or inside her mouth. She cautioned me that it is possible that due to the positioning of the devise and the outcome that Dr McCarthy wants to achieve that he could use an external device. Lets pray that he uses the inter oral device. She was really helpful in describing that post op expectations. Hannah will spend her first night in the ICU as the surgery will come close to her wind pipe and the swelling may require her to be intebated until the swelling goes down, intebated means a breathing tube down her throat for those who don't watch medical dramas on TV. It was good to learn this now and not the day of her surgery. Pat informs us that Hannah will be under for about 4 hours in total. Lastly we spend a considerable amount of time discussing what the impact will be after the bone is lengthened.  Hannah's chin will be brought past the middle of her face so that as she grows over the 10-12 years the chin will align in the mid line of her face.  One of the things that we had not be told was that after this procedure is complete the under developed cheek will be more pronounced.  We have been offered a consultation with the Microtia team at NYU to discuss Hannah's cheek and ear reconstruction. The appointment is on Monday so Judy will be here to come to the meeting with Hannah and I.  I am looking forward to hearing about how they support kids through the ear reconstruction process.  I understand they recommend using rib cartledge reconstruction initially, why? I don't know and am interested in knowing more.  Monday will be another busy day.  Judy should be feeling like a million bucks when we arrive for our 8:30 am appointment.

Moving from yesterday to today, we had a stay at home day today.  We had laundry to do and Hannah was not really interested in going to the park as it was raining. We did get out for a good walk and bought some groceries but Hannah spend most of her day playing with her friends in the play room downstairs.  Hannah has made friends with Taylor (3) and Maddie (5). Both girls are here for cancer treatment. Taylor goes home Saturday and will be back in a month.  Maddie is here for the next 7 weeks so she and Hannah will become good friends. 

Ronald McDonald house has a large turn over in children as they come for a week or two and then go home only to return in 4-12 weeks for more treatment.  There is a hospital here that specializes in a very complicated cancer treatment so kids are here from all over the USA and from overseas as well.  It would appear that we are the only Canadian family here at this point so we are a bit of a novelty. To be honest I like being different from all the other families here as they are having to live some really scary realities. I pray that God will bring each child and family through their treatment and bring healing to their bodies.

As is our custom here in New York (after one week) Hannah has taken to staying up until after 10 pm so it is now bed time for Hannah and I will be in bed not long after her.

TTFN

Hannah and John