Alveolar Bone Graft

Many of you asked about Ashley's upcoming surgery (which thankfully isn't until the Summer of 2013). It is called a Alveolar Bone Graft.

But before I go into to that let me back up a little. Ashley was born June 18th 2003 with a complete unilateral cleft lip and affected gumline (or Alveolar Ridge)on her left side. On her right side she has a microcleft. This was a cleft that healed itself but there is a slight scar left. When Ashley was 2 weeks old she was fitted for a NAM (Nasal Alveolar Mold) this was to help form and hopefully bring everything together and shape her nose. In the beginning I hated her having to wear that but after a short time she was able to eat better because of it and she started gaining weight. (she was still under her birth weight at one month)

At 5 months (and the day before Thanksgiving) she had her lip repair. Recovery for her was not the easist; she didn't want to eat OR sleep. But we figured things out and she healed beauitfully.

First picture - right after surgery
Last picture - 3 weeks post surgery
Ashley didn't have another surgery until she was 3 years old. This surgery was a fairly easy one for her and recovery was quick. They removed extra tissue from her lip and gums. Here is a picture about 8 hours post surgery. She couldn't blow the bubbles so Daddy did it for her.

Fast forward to today........

The bone graft. The thing Mom's of cleft affected kids DREAD most of all other surgeries. There was a chance we would get to skip this graft because the NAM did a great job of bringing her cleft area together but not good enough. Here is some info on the surgery. Alveolar Bone Graft
The surgeon did say there is a chance that the gap is small enough he will not have to use her hip bone (which can be one of the most painful parts of the surgery) so that is great news! During this surgery she may have a revision done on her lip as well.
A couple of other facts -
- I didn't have this surgery because I don't think they did this back in the dark ages.
- Wyatt will not have to have this surgery as his cleft did not go into the gumline (his was actually more like a microcleft on the outside but the underlying muscle was cleft)
-Ashley will not be able twirl for a little while but it might not be as long as first thought.
-the diet following the surgery will be a HUGE obsitacle for Ashley
-if you read this far you might have caught 25 puncuation,spelling or grammer errors ;)
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Happy Sunday!!