Here we are another year (and some) later and our sweet girl is FIVE! It was a bit crazy and hectic year for us with surgeries for Sawyer, her starting a new school, work changes for Ryan, and balancing it for me, but through it all you know our adventures with Sawyer are still the BEST part of every year. Each age just keeps getting better and better. We have so much fun together and can't get enough of her theatrical little personality.
Current Sawyer loves (and many repeats from last year)....
- Still dancing and singing...all the time
- Dressing up in costume, wearing dresses, twirly dresses, tulle
- The Descendants 2, Frozen 2, Zootopia
- Chicken nuggets, any kind of soup, big apples, Chuy's creamy jalapeño
- Pretend play, being outside, play dates
- Traveling and going on airplanes
- Swimming-pool, lake, hot tub, bathtub
- Christmas
This summer she took swim lessons and really took off. She was pretty much swimming by her 3rd lesson. So thankful she loves the water but also has respect for it and is cautious. She is still taking ballet/tap and it's definitely her favorite activity! Girl could live in leotards and tutus.
I said 2018 was the year of YES for us but really I think we've decided to make a lifestyle of it. :)
We always say we want to give Sawyer the world and with only one child, I hope we can. She is quite the little traveler with two trips to California this year to see her cousins, two trips to Colorado, and her first international trip to Costa Rica with grandparents and cousins! She loves to fly and knows exactly how to navigate security lines at the airport now.
In Costa Rica, she enjoyed collecting hermit crabs with her cousin Wren, hunting for sand dollars, and playing on the beach.
She got to go to Disneyland twice this year and spend Halloween there! Sawyer adores her older cousins and visiting them is always a treat.
Colorado is still a favorite and we were lucky to go twice this year-first to Breckenridge for a friend's wedding and second to Estes Park just the three of us. We can still fit her in the hiking backpack so we're able to get in nice, long hikes! She absolutely LOVES the snow so we're hoping to get in a ski trip in the winter of 2020!
Alright, update on all the other things...
We kicked off 2019 (literally Jan 2) with getting her tonsils out and another set of ear tubes put in. Her first set of ear tubes worked wonders for her and we knew when they fell out because she got back to back ear infections for 3 months, so a 2nd set was necessary. Also, Ryan and I started to notice an increase in snoring, as well as some sleep apnea, that was affecting her ability to get restful sleep. We knew her tonsils were VERY large, but her ENT had wanted to grow her as much as we could before he took them out. When we went in to see him about all the things, he agreed that it was finally time. She stayed the night in the hospital after surgery to have 24 hours of IV hydration and steroids to help with swelling. Also meant zero sleep. The steroids made her SO hungry and I was happy to see her eating so well that first day. Then the next two weeks were miserable. She didn't sleep, she didn't eat, we worried about hydration, pain control was difficult because she didn't want to take oral medicine, she ended up having nerve pain that radiated to one of her ears (potential side effect of removing tonsils)...seriously it was miserable and a terrible way to start the year.
All of that being said, best thing we did for her! She finally gained more weight than her average in a year, she ate better, she slept better, it's been amazing! Talking with her pediatrician and ENT, we believe that her tonsils were actually obstructive and made it difficult to eat much at a time and also tired her out so she wasn't even interested in eating more. Thankful we did it and that she's not getting sick as often!
In my last post, I discussed our visit with her hand surgeon and he asked to give him one more try with her hand. Recap, she's had three surgeries on her right hand. Her 2nd digit constantly crossed over the thumb and she used her thumb and 3rd digit for everything and neglected her 2nd one and the webspace he made for her. We struggled with the decision of whether or not to go ahead with a 4th surgery when we weren't positive it would give her any more use or range of motion. I discussed it at length with my favorite doctors and therapists that I work with and it helped SO much to see multiple sides to the situation-so thankful for my team!
In the end, we decided we wanted to go for it and give her the best chance we could at being able to comfortably use that hand...holding a pencil, hold bike handlebars without straining her wrist, hold a steering wheel eventually, etc.
In March, she had her 4th surgery on her right hand, 6th surgery of her life, 7th time to be under general anesthesia. Like in the past, we headed down to Houston the night before, had her surgery at Texas Children's and headed home that evening. She's seriously the best little patient. We talked to her about what to expect and how she would have a cast again and she was really okay with it.
Dr. Netscher ended up grafting a tendon from her left foot to figure 8 around her 2nd and 3rd metacarpals for what he called a fixed/static hold. He then used another piece of tendon and inserted it between the two digits for a dynamic hold. Then he explored the insertion point of her thumb and second digit and realized the two tendons were fused, so whenever she moved her thumb, the 2nd digit automatically moved with it (causing the crossing of the fingers and making it difficult to use the web space), so he separated those. Sorry, I know this is probably confusing...but in the end he came out to us and said he was SO excited about what he had been able to do and we just had to wait 6 weeks to see for ourselves!
She was a champ. It took about a week before she could fully walk on her left foot, but it at least wasn't in a full cast, just wrapped. We were able to control her pain and she was her cheerful self the majority of the time. Honestly, the incisions for the tendon graft were a little larger than we expected, but she is SO proud of her scars and will tell you all about them.
I was beyond excited and it's the best outcome we could have hoped for! We spent another six weeks working with our favorite hand therapist then went back to see Dr Netscher one final time. It was a bitter sweet appointment. We've been seeing him since she was 6 months old!! He's practically an honorary grandfather at this point. We showed him everything she could do now and he was so proud. We gave hugs, I tried not to cry, and then we basically said goodbye. He asked us to come by and see him whenever we came to Houston and to keep sending pictures. He is GOLD and we love him so much. :)
We still need to go see the orthopedic specialist for her feet and leg length discrepancy, but can't imagine we'll be doing anything different this year for those. Feeling excited for 2020 and hopefully a year without any surgeries!!
Thank you for continuing to check in on our girl and lift us up! She is one special little girl and we love doing this life with her. 💜
No comments:
Post a Comment