Daniel Coburn » children

Dad’s Day After Christmas

Daniel — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:13:19 +0000

Things a father should never be left alone to do with his kids:

Put nail polish on
Help his daughters with a “Make-Over”
1. Including lip gloss
2. Eye Shadow
3. Blush etc…. this is not something daddy’s are good at!
Playing Dress Up
Playing with Barbies… especially when you hear this: “Daddy You get the Naked Barbie”

I love my daughters, but look forward to my son getting older.

Christmas at the Hospital

Daniel — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:48:46 +0000

So Christmas morning our 17 month old son woke up not looking so well. But he seemed to be acting ok and was getting around. We do our Christmas morning with the family, have a nice breakfast etc. Our son takes his nap and when he wakes up he has a slight fever and a lot of discharge from his eyes. We clean him up but his fever is at 101.8. We called his Doctor and she said to give him some ibuprofen and if his fever continues to elevate we should bring him in. Sure enough he hit 104, so we headed to the ER (since nothing else was open). He looked miserable! He has conjunctivitis and sinusitis, poor guy! He’s still sleeping in this morning, so hopefully he’ll start feeling better today as we get antibiotics in him and medicine in his eyes… Another Christmas to remember!

Child with Cleft Lip and Palate Update

Daniel — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:25:59 +0000

A while ago I posted that my son had a cleft lip and palate. I wanted to give a quick update since some people seem to be finding my blog cause of it and I wanted to offer insight and any help if needed by folks out there.

My son is about 17 months old now and has been on the operating table 4 times with a total of 8 surgeries repairing his lip, palate, feeding tube and hernia. Most people really want to know about the cleft so let me go over the operations he’s had for that and some difference that occur in other parts of the states/world.

His first surgery was to repair his bi-lateral cleft lip. This surgery seems pretty basic “Sew the lips together”, but in all honesty it’s very complex. First you have to cut open all 4 surfaces and then attache the muscles and the flesh, all while trying to form a good looking lip. (Our son’s doctor did a great job Dr. Warnock). But in Utah they also put a prosthetic palate in his mouth, most other states do not do this.

His next surgery for his cleft was supposed to be to repair his soft palate only, but my wife and I did research that said doing the hard palate at this time had advantages, and also only Utah did the prosthetic. We consulted with our son’s doctor and he agreed to do it. His stance was that’s the way everyone in Utah was taught since they were taught by the same doctor, so they all did it that way. However, there’s not hard evidence that says one way is greater than the other. If we didn’t do the hard palate at this time we would have another surgery when our son was 4. So long story short they did everything on this final surgery. Soft Palate, Hard Palate, Nasal Passage repair, Dental Notches…

Our son came out of this surgery very well, one great advantage is when he sneezes very little comes out of his nose now [if you have a cleft palate kid you'll know what I mean].

I think the biggest thing to remember is it is not easy for a parent of a cleft to hear “Well at least the can correct it”, because their child is going to have a series of MAJOR surgeries. If you know someone with a cleft baby, tell them “It’s going to be tough and possibly a lot of surgery, if you need anything we’ll be here for you.” (you get the point). But the good news after seeing my son’s battle with being a preemie and the cleft, I know he’s a tough kid and will get through just about anything placed before him. Also I have a new set of fancy words that I know… In the great words of Homer J. Simpson “I am so smart S.M.R.T”