Alice's lip repair: part three

With hindsight, Alice improved immeasurably once the morphine drip was removed the morning after the op. Of course it's difficult to be sure about cause and effect, and babies can't tell you whether they're feeling better because the pain has gone anyway or because they're not being pumped with analgesic any more... but either way she perked up around midmorning and took a bottle of milk quite calmly, although it was still slow going. She also gave us her first post-repair smile which was indescribably wonderful!

One lovely thing about the ward which I think really helped Alice (and us) was the sensory room, all the way at the end of the floor and feeling a world away from the noise and bustle of the ward. It was a dark room, filled with soft mats, beanbags and shaped cushions, with a board of switches on the wall which controlled different light installations and effects. So there were bubble tubes, fibreoptic curtains, a mirrorball, wall projections etc. Alice has always loved looking at lights and colours and our visits to the sensory room seemed to distract her completely from her discomfort - and gave us a chance to sit and cuddle with her privately in a less medicalised environment. (Obviously this was only once the morphine drip was out and we could actually walk around with her.)

By early on Friday afternoon we were making plans to take Alice home, and having been given our supply of paracetamol and ibuprofen, vaseline and saline for wound care, and syringes in case bottle feeding regressed again, we walked back to Victoria - feeling I have to say like it had been far longer than 48 hours since we walked the same route in the other direction...