Well, we seem to be over the worst. At least for now. Ella (we think) is no longer suffering from pain and she is returning to her usual activities. She is totally back to feeding herself though the new configuration of her jaws and teeth makes it hard for her to attack certain foods. It is sad to see her go for a cracker biting full down on it only to leave absolutely no impression on it.
Her upper and lower jaws have so few points of contact, it is a wonder she manages to chew anything at all. Operation #2 should help with that, however with the improvement will come the cycle of hospitalization, pain, bewilderment… I don’t want to think about it now. But I want to get it over with. Surprisingly, through all of this, Ella has managed to move forward with her communications skills. For one she is back to vocalizing. A lot. She goes through lengthy and detailed descriptions of events and the theories she has. Unfortunately they are all encoded in her proprietary dadada nanana system, so we can only imagine the extent of her descriptive abilities. Secondly she has added another sign to her sign language repertoire. This is ‘my turn’ and is used whenever she and Netta are playing and she wants the toy.
The swelling in her face is very slowly going down and the sutures are also making themselves slightly less prominent. We will need to start massaging the right side of her face in order to stimulate the development of blood vessels that have been severed in surgery, as well as reduce the swelling of the muscles, helping to get back to movement on that side. I definitely miss Ella’s smile, with her right side paralyzed, you only get a hint of it.