Update on McKenna's Surgery

Well, McKenna is out of surgery in recovery. Mommy and daddy can't see her yet. She was in so much pain that they put her back on pain meds and she is resting. While she is fine and healthy, the prognosis is grim.

Doctor Soler told the parents that McKenna's case is very rare. In most situations, the palate on either side is too small. The doctor goes in and takes the skin off the bone and stitches it together in the center as a make-shift palate just without bone. But in McKenna's case, one side of her palate is 1/2 where it should be and the other half is 1 1/2 times the size it should be and completely twisted. They were able to sew it together but part of her bone is exposed and they hope that it will heal itself. There is a huge dip in the palate which should be flat and the artery that normally runs across the palate is all the way at the back of her mouth.

The doctor's prognosis is that McKenna will require a bone graph and braces to correct her crooked palate, requiring her jaw to be broken and rewired! She will also require a missing tooth to be replaced and then plastic surgery for her nose to replace the lacking cartilage.

For the next two weeks, McKenna will have to go back on formula and eat from a syringe, because any suction could pull the delicate stitches apart. Please keep her and her family in her prayers on her road to recovery.

I will keep you posted on any progress or setbacks. Again, your help is still greatly needed, especially now knowing that her situation is every worse than we originally thought.

Thank you in advance,
Dani
SOTB Owner and McKenna's Auntie