No Mo No-No's

We had a really great post-op visit with our plastic surgeon today, and he said these magic words "desist with the no-no's." (Remember the no-no's? Those things Pearl was wearing on her arms to keep her hands away from her mouth? The ones that were starting to be a pretty grimy green since Pearl had been wearing them just about 24/7 for the past six weeks. I should post a pic here, but I'm tired.)

So we can all rejoice with Pearl over her newly-bendable-again elbows and the fact that she can again pursue one of her favorite pastimes - chewing on her fingers. He said we can treat her like she has a normal mouth. We don't have to worry about her bumping her face around a bit on the floor as she gets more practice crawling, and we can introduce her to more solid foods. Woo-hoo!

She'd also gained weight. She was over 15 lbs today.

The doc said again that she is doing so much better than he expected. We are so grateful and humbled by this.

Tonight

Davis' bedtime prayer began, "Thank you for pancakes and lemonade. . ."

Princess P is TB Free!

The docs have finally, finally declared that Pearl does NOT have active TB. This is a relief, though we (and they) were 95% sure already that she did not have that disease. (Previous posts on Pearl and TB are here and here.) She will still be taking one of her previous four medicines for a few months to insure that she does not have any latent TB in her system. This changes our day a lot, since I will not have to follow our previous routine of keeping her super hungry for a late lunch so that she would eat four meds at once at 1:30 everyday. Now she can do more snacking in the mornings, all three kids will have a better nap routine, etc., etc., etc. . . Yay for one more victory for our girl! Having learned more about this disease, I know how truly terrible it is and how many, many people in the world (particularly in two of our kids' home countries) suffer from it. I am grateful for the public health system in this nation that keeps most Americans safe from this and also very grateful that we will not need their direct services any longer.