Emelias latham device

Our surgical team uses the latham device to close the gumline gap before lip repair. The device consists of 4 pins that get pushed into the upper gums to hold it in place therefore needing Emelia to be put to sleep for cooperation purposes. We had to be in Boston at 6am for a 7:30 surgery. Driving to Boston at 3:30 am (and yes, we got there an hour early for surgery so we arrived at 5am) was ridiculously easy with no traffic. We just played and hung out with Emelia for a bit until she got a bit cranky because she was hungry. The most wonderful lady was with her son and we were chit chatting which must have put Emelia to sleep. This woman had many kids, and a grandkid! But was there for her youngest son (about 1yr) for his lip repair. This poor little boy and mother had a horrible night later on. I spent much of my stay walking with her or just admiring her. I wish I could talk to her again but there was a culture gap that kept me from asking for contact information. Anyway, She introduced me to her room mate that evening who was in the surgery right after us by our dr. We chit chatted and saw each other at a few other visits and then we became room mates at our lip repairs by chance. Its funny how things work out... Off topic again! So this was our first "surgery". While there was not supposed to be pain (yeah right) and there was no blood involved, there was anesthesia. As long as we were told she woke up fine, we didnt care what happened.

The put a breathing tube down her throat to administer the anesthesia and monitor her levels properly. Her poor throat afterwords sounded horrible and sad. She woke up a few times on and off but when she finally came too, she wasnt happy. Dont blame her.

Luckily, they give some good drugs and she spent most of her stay sleeping or trying to eat. We must have done something right because we were able to go due to her eating really well. We went home and things were fairly easy to adjust too. She sometimes had pain and sometimes was fine. Usually she was just kind of blah. It seems like she wasnt developing much during the time we had the device. I would guess because she slept a lot to deal with it. We had to turn the screw with a screw driver (nothing fancy, it looked like something in a toolbox) once a day for 3 of the 5 weeks we had the device. That was horrible.

  The right is before, the middle is after 1 week and the left is after 2 weeks.

Closed!

This is what it looked like. It was always covered in mucus and required some interesting cleaning, especially since we arent supposed to try to clean it ourselves due to it being easy to dislodge.The red chain got adjusted at every appointment which were 3 times in the 5 weeks between surgeries.