2 and a Half Weeks Down, 5 and a Half to Go

I thought I would post an update on Sophie since I haven't in some time. She is more or less back to her normal self physically. She is running, jumping, swimming and even biking just as she did before. Her hip doesn't really bother her at all. She doesn't like anyone bumping it and still won't let me peal those tape strips off but as far as her hip goes she is fine. Before this surgery I often was told and read that the hip was what hurt the worst and I had the idea that she wouldn't be up walking around so well afterward but Sophie isn't the type of girl that will ever sit still for long. She needs to be doing things and doesn't take a rest for any reason (except when she is so engrossed in a book and hides in her room, curled up on her bed, to read undisturbed).

Her mouth seems to be doing well. Every once in awhile Sophie will show me a little knotted piece of string she finds in her mouth. I guess the sutures are falling out rather than just being absorbed. Tonight she even found little pieces of bone in her mouth.

We saw the surgeon at the end of last week and he took an x-ray of her face and he said the bone looks just as it should and that we need to get her to the orthodontist to be fitted for a new retainer to make sure her teeth don't shift any further. She has been without her retainer since the day of surgery. It will end up being a month since that day before we can be seen and the mold taken. I really hope things haven't shifted too much!

The hardest part of this whole post op experience has been the liquid/ soft foods diet. I have a really hard time finding things for Sophie to eat. She is tired of yogurt but eats it because there isn't anything else except apple sauce that she can just pull out of the fridge and eat.  I send most of our regular meals through the blender  and see if they are palatable in that form. Most of them taste very different as mush. One meal she does like is Pesto Pasta. I just buy the Costco pesto and serve it with broccoli and cauliflower and if I have it some chicken over some whole wheat pasta. My kids love it and luckily it tastes pretty much the same ground up.  So we have had that meal several times over the past two weeks and then the left overs have been used for lunch and dinner for Sophie for days afterward. I think she is getting tired of it as well.

We have tried mashed potatoes but they have never been one of the things Soph has really enjoyed. She ate them because there wasn't another choice.  She still wont eat scrambled eggs or even oatmeal. She is a rather picky eater anyway but cut out a lot of the things she normally eats and she has even less to fill her belly.

This is where things are really taking their toll. Sophie never really feels full. She eats because she is hungry but because the food is just ok or because she is only eating things because there isn't anything else, she isn't really eating enough. I haven't weighed her but I am sure she is loosing weight. But the worst thing is that she tends to get really cranky and has had a number of very big outbursts where she just looses control. I just know it is because she isn't getting enough in her tummy. I offer all sorts of food but she doesn't eat them. I am sure it is just something we are going to have to live with until the doctor says it is ok to use her teeth. 

We have ended up eating a lot of soup for dinner and then the left overs become her lunch for the next day.  I have been trying a lot of different soups as a result and we have found a few new ones that we will be making again in the future.

Last night we had a Pumpkin Black Bean soup (I wish I remembered where I found it so I could point you in the right direction for the recipe. I printed it out months ago so can't remember) which my husband really enjoyed. It has curry in it so has a bit of the Indian food smell and taste. It was great with tortillas dipped in it.  Sophie of course had it blended up and it went down alright but the boys really fought it and Molly wouldn't try it at all. But it was a first try so we will have to give it another go another time.

 

I also make a lot of smoothies sometimes with the kale or spinach and sometimes with just fruit. It depends on what I am serving it with. If the dinner already has a lot of greens than I just do fruit.  But I throw spinach in just about all my smoothies and even sometimes the ice cream I make in my blender. I LOVE our Blendtec. I don't know how I would do this liquid diet without it.


Last night's smoothie was particularly good. Henry didn't even complain too much about it. And it was loaded with kale and spinach. I think it was the Pomegranate juice and the frozen mango and papayas that I used that the kids really enjoyed. I am getting better and better at really good tasting green smoothies.


So right now we are just hanging in there with the food situation but everything else is going really well.