Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Doctors Appointments and Such

I haven't blogged since Israel's last doctors appointment and thought it was probably time that I do. He had another appointment at Dornbecher's Children's Hospital a few weeks back. Saw 3 doctors and 4 nurse practitioners, were there for well over 4 hours and got some good news...some not so good news. It was an exhausting day to say the least! I won't get into everything...because that would be a very long blog, and to be honest...most of you probably wouldn't read it all anyway! Lol! So I will just key in on a few of the bigger things.

Israel now weighs 10 pounds! Yeah for continued weight gain! However I think it is hysterical he is only in the 6th percentile for his weight! He doesn't seem little to me! Maybe he just carries all of his weight in his cheeks! Lol :-)

We met with the Nurse Practitioner first and she was very pleased with Israel's growth and progress. However it doesn't appear that his jaw/chin has changed at all yet. Please continue to pray that his jaw will start to grow out on it's own! We then saw an ENT and she agreed with everything the Nurse Practitioner had to say, as well as she added that his breathing was still great. (I could have told you that!). Many babies with this problem have lots of airway issues. Thank God Israel doesn't! Next we saw a Plastic Surgeon. She as well said all the same things that the other two said. Although she noticed that Israel's tongue is not only tethered to the bottom of his mouth, but the front of his tongue is tethered down too. Meaning he can not move his tongue at all. This will eventually case problems with eating as he starts on solids and also cause major speech problems as he begins to talk. She believes he will need to have his tongue clipped somewhere between 12-15 months of age. Now normally this would not be a big deal, however due to his very small jaw/chin, this will most likely cause a new problem for him, airway obstruction. Which means that his tongue has no where to go, except backwards into his throat, causing him to not be able to breath...obviously this will be a major issue! So what do we do about that? PRAY REALLY HARD that God will heal him. And if God doesn't heal him? Have surgery. Israel would need a surgery done where they would basically break his jaw, put a spacer in each side, and slowly widen the gap in the spacer each day to encourage new bone growth. Thus making his chin larger. We aren't to excited about the thought of this and are asking that you would please continue to keep little Israel in your prayers. God is the greatest physician and we are trusting in Him to heal Israel. Thank you again, for all of you who are so faithful to lift us up in prayer. We love you!

1 comment:

Ann Wunsch said...

wow! pretty incredible in itself that he is able to nurse and take a bottle since his tongue is immobilized!! Yes, we will pray. Our eldest daughter had jaw surgery at 19 years old, because her childhood dentist did not catch her underbite in time to do the stretching. God intervened in that surgery and it was not nearly as extensive as we had been told.

Will pray the same for your Israel, who by the way is such a wonder to me! What adorable facial expressions he has!