[cclngthr]

Originally Posted by scagjockey

Saja's hospital room in Salt Lake City. I don't know if this is prior to her surgery or after.

The surgery is this afternoon.

Edit. Did not see the pic before I posted. It looks like it is after the major work she had last week.

[cclngthr]

Elvis sang a song with the lyrics "we are closer to heaven when we are down on our knees"......that is what this morning brought us. Early this morning the nurse noticed Saja's trach slipped. Saja was immediately stabilized and rushed into surgery. Dr. Park successfully placed in her new specialized trach. We thought she was out of the woods but Saja's tongue has been severely swollen all week. Today they placed a block between her teeth and tongue. Abdul had to interpret to Saja not to try and spit the block out. Her tongue......oh my God.....I can't write the words. The reality was too much to witness. Abdul was so strong. Please pray Saja won't lose her tongue or her ability to speak........

Saja's tongue is extremely swollen yet. I hope it is just from the trach surgery. I hope it goes down sometime soon.

[GrayC]

Jeez! That poor kid.

[cclngthr]

Originally Posted by GrayC

Jeez! That poor kid.

Like Ron said, it seems to never end...

Tammy told me later Saja has been biting her tongue, which is the cause of the swelling. That makes me wonder if she gets startled easy. Since she is paralysed, it may be a normal reaction for her jaw to clamp down if she gets startled.

I know for me, I go through the roof if I get startled, which is fairly easy. I haven't asked other spinal chord injury people I know of if the biting is a reaction to get startled, but it could.

[GrayC]

Originally Posted by cclngthr

Like Ron said, it seems to never end...

Tammy told me later Saja has been biting her tongue, which is the cause of the swelling. That makes me wonder if she gets startled easy. Since she is paralysed, it may be a normal reaction for her jaw to clamp down if she gets startled.

I know for me, I go through the roof if I get startled, which is fairly easy. I haven't asked other spinal chord injury people I know of if the biting is a reaction to get startled, but it could.

You said that Saja fell and became paralyzed. I thought she was paralyzed from the degenerative dwarfism she has. How did she fall?

[cclngthr]

Originally Posted by GrayC

You said that Saja fell and became paralyzed. I thought she was paralyzed from the degenerative dwarfism she has. How did she fall?

That was what Tammy had said. I don't know how she fell. I do know that her spine was a mess, and it is possible that when she fell, it damaged the spinal chord. I'll ask Tammy if she knows more about it.

I'm thinking since the Morquio they have allows the spine to collapse upon itself and any wrong move does damage to the spinal chord.

I did ask Tammy about that.

Tammy says:

it's much worse than that Colin. She bit down so hard for so long that her tongue is almost bit in two. I died a thousand deaths when I saw. The doctors are hopeful because the tongue is pink in color. It looks bad but they said only time will tell if there is permanent damage. Tomorrow they will put her to sleep again and made a mold of her teeth and then place a permanent block. Her tongue is so swollen that it may take a month to recover. One good thing came out of this. She had a baby tooth and it was loose. The dentist pulled it out. Tooth fairy will have to pay her a visit.

[cclngthr]

Abdul being very resourceful. Wardah and Abdul reuse what they can. To her, they are usable and could be a way for a better life.

The kids have a thirst to learn; they love to live, laugh, play. They are not very materialistic. Most of all, they just want friends.

[seebert]

This is what I received this morning. I sure hope Tammy is using some form of software to help in this, I'd hate to think she's writing all of these e-mails by hand:

Elvis sang a song with the lyrics "we are closer to heaven when we are down on our knees"......that is what this morning brought us.

Early this morning the nurse noticed Saja's trach slipped. Saja was immediately stabilized and rushed into surgery. Dr. Park successfully placed in her new specialized trach. We thought she was out of the woods but Saja's tongue has been severely swollen all week. Today they placed a block between her teeth and tongue. Abdul had to interpret to Saja not to try and spit the block out. Her tongue......oh my God.....I can't write the words. The reality was too much to witness. Abdul was so strong.

Please pray Saja won't lose her tongue or her ability to speak........

Ted, it was the worst thing I ever saw. Saja bit down on her tongue from the first surgery. When they opened her mouth her tongue was almost bitten in two. Oh my god....my beautiful daughter.

That must have been quite awful, for Tammy, a trained combat nurse, to have said such a thing.

[cclngthr]

Another update from Tammy

> Her tongue is still severely swollen with a bite mark almost in half. The dentists will keep a close eye on it. Good signs are the tongue is still pink in color. If things don't improve within the next two days with her tongue they will paralyze her in order to make molds and enable her mouth to stay open wider so the swelling will decrease. Every time Abdul sees her tongue he becomes very agitated.
>
> Saja slept a lot today, mostly from pain medication. Fever has been low grade. They will slowly try to wean her off the ventilator machine but only when all the machines indicate she is ready.
>
> Saja is one special young lady. When the doctors and nurses come into the room, and if Saja is awake, she will feeably wave her hand hi and goodbye.

[GrayC]

Originally Posted by cclngthr

She is a strong little girl.

Where was this taken? In Iraq? What is he carrying? This photo is too funny. I wonder if anything fell off.