Sydney and Emily Got into the Makeup
Meet Emily (right) and Sydney (left). This blog started out as being all about Emily, and her initial journey towards a whole and beautiful smile. Emily was born on 4/15/04 with a complete bilateral cleft lip and palate. She underwent six months of nasoalveolar molding at NYU Medical Center and continues to be followed by the excellent team there. After six months, Emily had her first surgery to repair her lip, nose and gums. When she was a year old she had her next surgery to repair her palate and got tubes placed in her ears at that time.
There was a 60% chance that Emily would need a bone graft by the age of 8 even though Dr. Cutting (her surgeon at NYU) attempted to fuse her gums during her initial cleft repair. I held my breath from Emily’s last surgery at age 1 until her next one, which turned out to be at age 7. We got the news that she would definitely need the bone graft last year, and she did, indeed, have this procedure done this past July 2011. Emily will hopefully be surgery free from now until her teens (or possibly forever!) but we won’t know until her face matures more. We do know that she is at the beginning of a long and arduous orthodontic journey, and will likely need several minor orthodontic surgeries as her teeth continue to mature.
This blog has become a lot more than Emily’s story. It’s also Sydney’s story and Rachel’s and Abby’s and…well, you get the picture. This blog made Sydney and Emily’s friendship possible. The girls (seen above wearing TONS of makeup) have literally grown up knowing each other because Sydney’s mother found this blog and reached out to me. I’m so glad she did too – it’s nice to know that we don’t have to go through this alone. Please don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact form on this site . Thanks for visiting!