Anxious for Home
October 29, 2005 12:32 AM

I broke away for a few minutes to do a quick update. Last night the doctor drained a bit of fluid from Juliana's head and she seemed to feel quite a bit better. This morning when we awoke it seemed like all of the fluid had returned. The doctor came back in this morning and drained a lot more fluid and she is feeling even better now. Her eyes are still too swollen to see, but they are VERY SLOWLY getting better.

We are still in Miami at this time. The hospital in Jacksonville is very full and there is still no bed available. We are ready, very ready, to return to home.

Tomorrow is Kendra's birthday. It is very hard to tell her that we will not be there for it.

—Tami

Slow Recovery
October 27, 2005 1:01 PM

I finally got an opportunity for another update. Juliana's recovery is not progressing as quickly as we had hoped for. Her face is still very swollen. The doctor extracted a little bit of fluid from her head today to send to the lab. She is not presenting the normal signs of any infection (fever, white blood cell level) however her head is very tender and a little warm in one spot and is red in the same spot. We are currently waiting for an ICU room to open in Jacksonville for her and then we will be airlifted back home to continue recovery there. This is all a little scarier for her this time because she still is not able to see five days after surgery.

On a lighter note, her personality is shining through. She was signing this morning. She was tickling me and being silly. And when I removed the blood pressure cuff from her arm this morning she gave me two thumbs up.

I am not going to be putting pictures of her on the page at this time. They are still a little too graphic.

Please keep the thoughts and prayers coming they are still much needed.

—Tami

Juliana's Doing Fine
October 22, 2005 9:41 PM

Here is the update from surgery. Once she finally was taken in to the operating room a little after 3:00 (surgery was scheduled for 9am) she was finished after about 2 hours. Everything went fantastic! She is looking a little rough now. She is pretty swollen.

After we got to Miami and were finally able to talk face to face with the doctors we found out that this surgery was not as simple as we had thought it was going to be. First of all the tubes in her nose were changed to some larger ones. After that they opened her scalp using the same scar line as her two previous major operations. Bone Morphagenic Protein (BMP) was put into her face and onto her skull at different places to promote bone growth and strength. Talking to the doctors involved in the surgery this recovery time may take longer than we anticipated. Typically she looks the worst about 24 hours afterward and the swelling and bruising last a couple of days. This time we are expecting her worst days to come after about 3 days and the swelling and bruising to last 3-5 days.

Continue to keep Juliana in all of your prayers for a quick recovery time. I will try to get some pictures of her on here soon. And I will continue to update as I am able.

Tomorrow (Sunday) night we will be in hurricane mode at the hospital. Thom and I will both be staying at the hospital and waiting out the storm.

—Tami

Big Plans for Kendra
October 01, 2005 10:01 PM

Not much to speak of has happened since the last update. The new picture is Juliana's version of Wonder Woman. I was going through a box of clothes and she decided that she needed to try on some boots and add some panties to her outfit. There is never a boring day in our house. I was laughing so hard that I was crying and she was looking at me like I am the crazy one.

We are going on a short trip next weekend to Disney for Kendra's birthday. This will be our first time to Disney and I think that I am more excited than the girls are. I hope Juliana is not afraid of the characters.

The film crew that we worked with for the last documentary will be joining us at Disney to film a little for our next story. They will also be filming in Miami again. The next story is going to be part of a series titled "Saving Faces" and it will air on TLC. As soon as I have more info on it I will let everybody know. I am also waiting to hear a final date from a daytime show that we have been asked to be guests on. I will also let everyone know which show and when as soon as I know when. Check back to find out.

—Tami