Look who's straight!

Kaylea recently recieved her long, long awaited titanium ribs! We are just thrilled with the outcome of her procedure! It is quite an invasive surgery and she had some major movement of her spine and ribs, but she did great in the hospital and only ended up staying a week!!! Thankfully she was only in the PICU for 4 days and then moved to *the floor* for 4 days!!

Unfortunately the hospital blocks blogger, so I was not able to blog during our time there, but now the we are home and she is settled, I have more time to share her experience and her

x-rays and pictures.

This is the side view. You can see the large hump on her right side is now MUCH smaller!! Isn't it just amazing??

In this view you can see how much they were able to straighten her spine!! We are amazed at just how straight she looks now!!

This is her spine the morning of her surgery!!

This is after the surgery and under the 3 white bandages are the incisions!! Look how nice her spine looks!! :-)

She looks sooo much taller to me and is looking more like a *9* year old young lady every day!! John just measured her and she is 2.25 inches taller!!!! WOW!!! She had to wait 3+ years to finally get her ribs due to her weight being so low. I blogged about her eating issues a while back. She is doing better, but still uses purging as a control tactic. We are scheduled to have her evaluated at yet another hospital in Dallas next month!! Our G.I. doc on base finally decided that she needs some outside help, but of course had to the top dog at the base hospital to get approval. However, he was able to accomplish that in a matter of a few days, so he has earned back some of my trust!! IF, she is admitted to the program it will be 6-8 MONTHS before she gets in. However, they have a great reputation and their program is in-patient, so I feel like it will be worth the wait.

See how great she looks!!!!

I have asked about having her trach removed, but none of her docs feel that it is a good time to do that procedure. Suddenly, everyone feels that this was a good option for her, but I'm not feeling it! We continue to have nursing services 12 hours a day, and I am finally getting use to having someone here all the time! The g-tube....well, that will be in for quite a while. At least until she successfully completes the eating/feeding disorders program! That is the scoop on Kaylea!!