Hope and Lily Health Update after appointments

Hope and Lily met with our pediatrician. Hope looks great except she failed her hearing test. This is common due to fluid in the ears they say and to be expected with a cleft. When she has her surgery next month they will put in tubes to help this. We've never noticed her not hearing well. She is very quick to turn around when we play with her. Everything else looks good. She goes next week for a wrist X-ray to test for rickets. Also for a blood test. Trying to figure out what vaccines she's had and such.

Lily and I went yesterday to her appointment. She is 9 and a half years old and weighs 38 lbs and is tiny and short. Everyone thinks she is 4. She is indeed much smaller than I remember her last summer. It's funny to call her Rob and Johnny's older sister when she is so much smaller. Lily will go for X-rays and blood test too next week. The doctor is 90% sure she has severe rickets. After extensive research myself I agree. She has SO many symptoms. We have her on Shaklee vitamins and eating great. Can't wait to get her blood tests.

The doctor also thinks she has congenital hip dysplasia (sp). One leg is shorter and she kinda waddles when she walks. One side of her hip really pokes out. It makes me sad to think of the pain she has gone thru in her life. I wonder if she still feels pain and has just gotten used to it.

Lily also has a fistula that needs to be repaired. We knew this was her "special need" listed but when the doctor examined her it brought her to tears. We had no idea it was as bad as it is and we will be hoping to have this surgery as soon as we can. Her records show that she had surgery to repair this shortly after she came to the orphanage (2 months after she was born she was abandoned). The doctor must have done a horrible job or nothing at all.

So Lily will need a surgery to repair the fistula and also probably a surgery on her hip. Hope will need lip surgery then palate surgery. We are hoping our insurance doesn't give us the run around and that we can get all four of these this year.

I think it's a miracle that Lily is alive. I cannot begin to understand her life and what she's been through, although I try. I've tried to piece together bits of unreliable information. I wonder if she was born with the bad hip. Perhaps she broke it in childbirth. Perhaps she was dropped as a baby. She has a giant scar on her forehead and one under her chin and on her ear. I wish I could've been there to prevent these injuries. I wonder if anyone held her when she cried. Or did she cry at all?

Daniel says his only regret is that we did not get Lily sooner.

We are so happy to have them both. The doctor teared up after examining Lily and said that it just breaks her heart. I told her what really would break my heart is to think that she could still be there...suffering. But she's not. She's in a protected, safe, happy world now called family!

But there are SO many others still out there. That need families...