Nit-picking from a Couple of Weeks Ago

What in the world is Dave doing here?

Nitpicking.
Yes, literally nit picking.
We have had our second infestation of lice in 4 months :-(.
Our dear family friends found out they had it first, and since our kids had been playing together that last weekend, we decided to check our kids. . . and we had them, too.
After the lice shampoo and combing with a special comb, Dave went through wearing his special "loops" he wears to do surgery to have a magnified view of our scalps.
We invited our friends over for a nit picking party. That's John holding the flashlight for Dave, and his son, Nicholas who is being nitpicked. Nickyu's brother, Justin, is looking on.

Thankfully, we are all in the clear now :-).

The funniest thing is that now Lily thinks that this is just a normal part of life. She will routinely come up to me and ask me to check her hair for lice :-).

Links I Love

Thinking of adopting? Worried about the cost? Maybe you want to, but your husband is more hesitant? Check out this youtube vid by an adoptive father. . .


Also, I love the band Sanctus Real. Here is a song sung by the lead singer, Matt Hammitt. His baby boy was diagnosed with heart defects in utero. This inspired him to write this song - "All of Me." Although Lily doesn't have heart defects, she does have some special needs. This song reminds me not to hold back in loving her - just the way she is - even if she never becomes a "typically developing" child.


Are you a mama who is suffering some sleep deprivation? Kids got you up at night?
Here is a wonderful perspective written by Linny from A Place Called Simplicity (on my sidebar, one of the blogs I love to read).

Some artwork by my 2 big boys

We had a rough month in February - but so thankful for God's amazing grace at all times.
Some things we have been up to. . .

Matthew and Nathan have been studying artists and imitating their techniques at their homeschooling co-op (Classical Conversations). I thought they did a beautiful job with watercolors.

This is Nathan's version of an Andrew Wyeth painting. It shows a house with snow falling. The snow was made by dabbing rubber cement on his original drawing. When you do watercolor over it, the rubber cement resists the paint. After the watercolors dry, you can rub off the rubber cement very easily.

This is Matthew doing a watercolor in the style of Georgia O'Keefe. Right when he showed it to me, I knew - Georgia O'Keefe - the lady who paints huge flowers.

Clarification

I realized that I wasn't that clear about Lily's surgery.

The photo from two posts ago shows her surgery site. Those three little steristrips show where her hernia was repaired laparoscopically. That means that the surgeon made pin sized puncture wounds and used something like a very thin metal "arm" that could go on and sew up where the defect was and push and pull everything back to where it belongs. They also inflate the abdominal area with air so that they can work in there. A small camera was inserted through an incision made in her belly button so that Dr. Bruzoni could see what he was doing. If you go back and look at the photo you will see some redness and stitches in Lily's navel. Laparoscopic surgery is less invasive and quite amazing! Also with the camera, Dr. Bruzoni was able to see that Lily also had an umbilical hernia that he was able to repair while he was doing the inguinal ones.

If you look at where the steri strips are, you can see that her hernias were located at her lower abdomen. We got photos that were taken during surgery, and Dr. Bruzoni showed me Lily's ovaries and her uterus. Very incredible to see them. And wow! She's really a girl :-). Just quite cool to see her girl organs as it were.

I apologize if this is super medical and technical. I realized based on a comment left that I wasn't very clear. And being the kind of person who likes to understand what is going on, I thought I would share what has been explained to me.

A commentary about comments

I am blessed by your comments.
I know that it is not the easiest to leave comments on a blog in comparison o Facebook or Instagram (I'm not on Facebook so I am taking people's word for it), so I appreciate it deeply when you take the extra time to respond and leave me a message :-).

I read every single comment, and am truly encouraged by each and every one.

Speaking of instagram, if you have an iPhone you can follow me there too. My user name is chenningpeng.

More surgery pics

This documents the worst of it (hopefully Lily will simply be getting better and better!).

Lily is happier today, now that the anesthesia has left her system. She is having trouble sitting up from a lying down position and taking the steps up from our family room to the kitchen. She is notably subdued, wants to be held and is sitting quietly to watch tv. I am kind of enjoying this calmer version of Lily.

I had a friend tell me that I seem to take this all in stride as I was describing all of the medical care Lily has had and will have. The truth is, I don't take it in stride :-(. It is very very hard emotionally and physically to go through these things with your child :-(. I have been more stressed and anxious is recent months than ever before. I catch myself worrying about all of Lily's future procedures, her speech therapy and early intervention therapies, and more.

Of course there is so much joy and sweetness that makes it so worth it. It is absolutely a privilege to have a little person grow to trust and love you. The best.

And the Lord is holding us together and sustaining us. Today has enough worries of its own. Another friend reminded me that we need to daily surrender ourselves (and our children) to Him, and also when trials or difficulties or bad news comes, the Lord is not surprised by any of it. He knows and will be there through all of it.

In a couple of weeks Lily will have her appointment with the Cranio facial team at Ucsf again. It will be the first time Dr. Hoffman, her plastic surgeon, will see her healed palate. Please pray for this as Dave and I suspect that a fistula (or fissure) has formed near her gum line :-(. If that is so, it means a second palate repair sometime this year. We are not sure of course since (1) Lily doesn't let us look too long in mouth and (2) we don't quite know what we are looking for or how it is supposed to look. So there is a chance that everything is actually ok. I pray that that is so, but if not, I remind myself of what I wrote in the previous paragraph.

Hernia surgery

We are home. Everything went smoothly. Thank you for your prayers!

The only hitch was that Lily's surgery was delayed almost 2 hours. The surgery before hers got misbooked (is that a word?) and thus the delay. We arrived at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at 7:15 am and she did not go into the OR until nearly 10:30am. My worry was that she was going to start getting hungry and thirsty (having not eaten or drunk anything since 8pm last night). But thank the Lord - it really was an answer to prayer, she waited patiently and did not once ask for food or water :-).

The surgery was successful and dr. Bruzoni (whom we love) also found that Lily had an umbilical hernia too that he repaired on the way out. I have some more photos I can share later.

Pray for a restful night. Lily is crabby ad achey from anesthesia and surgery.

Love,
Chenning