Second Day of Surgery, February 14, 2011

Four of the children who had surgery yesterday were kept overnight, evaluated this morning and released. A parent and the patient checked into the hospital yesterday afternoon for today's surgeries. Space can be at a premium when the patients from yesterday are in the same area as those waiting for today's procedures. There is a strange juxtaposition of anxious parents whose children are awaiting surgery and joyful parents whose children's surgery is completed. The surgeries today tend to be more complex and time consuming, cleft palates and multiple procedures such as baby teeth extraction along with cleft lip repair. Many children come with so much tooth decay and infection that a palate surgery is not safe for the child until the mouth has healed. One child had 16 teeth extracted today.

Adjustments were made to allow for a power outage and recovery had to take place in the operating room where a generator kept the power going, a little snag in an otherwise successful day.