Conclusion...for now :)

I am so glad that you have taken the time to read my blog! I find it a rather fascinating story and I hope you did as well :) It's been quite a journey so far, but I couldn't have been able to go through it without all my family, my friends and my great God every step of the way!

This is my family, The Scheels...(Carter, Lauren, Dad Mike, Me, Mom Julie, Sam)

This picture was taken 2 years ago, the only difference from then and now is my mom's hair :) She says she's had as many different hair styles as I've had surgeries haha :) It's ever changing!

I am so blessed to be apart of this most incredible family. I couldn't have asked for a better family than this one right here! I wouldn't be who I am and look like I do now had it not been for my parents and my siblings. Such a crazy fun supportive, Christ centered family, I am always thankful to be apart of it. I have been given so many great opportunities being apart of this family from being able to travel, experience a private Christian school for 10 years, take piano lessons, to having surgeries, and being given the best possible life that my birthmom could have imagined me having. That's where it all leads to...looking back from where I stand now and looking at where I was. I could have been a poor begging child on a street or quite possibly not even be alive at this point in life, but God had a plan from the start. He always has a plan. He had a life planned for me that my birthmom couldn't see, but she made the choice, let me go, and gave me the opportunity at a new life. And as this journey continues on, His plan will continue be my life. I am incredibly thankful for everything I have been blessed with. I might keep posting some random parts to my journey between now and my next surgeries but I will be sure to keep you all posted as my next surgery will be coming in the next few months! :)

"Loved, Given Away, God's Plan, Adopted"- My six word life story

Adoption Day # 14- September 8, 2011

This was the first time Lauren got to hold me, she was almost 12 years old. We are almost 10 years apart! My mom said I was very content while travelling over there, especially while being held! But I would get very jealous if my mom ever gave Lauren any attention...good thing this isn't a problem any more :)

My mom, dad, Lauren and I celebrated my 14th year adoption day this year! We celebrated a couple days before because my parents were going to be travelling on my actual adoption day, September 8. I am so blessed to have such an incredible sister like Lauren! Even though we are 10 years apart, I look up to her greatly! I couldn't have asked for a better sister than her :)

This is where we go almost every year! It's our traditional Happy Adoption Day dinner! Before my parents went to get me from Danang, they had gone to Kim Huong a few times. They knew these people were Vietnamese and got to know them. These people were interested in my adoption and since then we have been going there every year to celebrate! Plus the food is super good :)

Surgery 9- June 30, 2011

This was my most recent surgery this past summer. The week before it was crazy as we were getting ready for my oldest brother's wedding on the 26th and my surgery was 4 days later! Family was leaving and we got a day's break before my surgery. I'm always amazed at my mom's incredible strength she has as we go through these crazy times!
The process to this surgery was kinda confusing. We had a check up in April where we thought we were going in to see about having my nose surgery.  My nose has a deviated septum and makes breathing rather hard, so I will eventually have a surgery to correct this. But before we can correct the nose and rebuild it I have to have a strong supportive nasal base. Which the nasal base is the upper jaw. Before we could build on to the nasal base we had to make sure my upper and lower jaw were in best alignment as possible. So the possible surgery that was on the table was having to have my upper jaw cut and pulled forward and moved down and my lower jaw cut and pushed back and then wired shut for a few weeks to correct the alignment of my jaw. But I had X-Rays done and it showed that my jaw was pretty much in the best position as possible.Thanks to my orthodontist, he overcorrected my jaw when I was younger which affected the placement of it now...turned out to be quite the blessing for me! :)  So now that my jaw was set in the correct place, next came the strength of the nasal base. Because of having been born with a cleft lip and palate I had very little to no bone at all in the front upper jaw of my mouth. Because of this there was not enough bone to support building a nose off of it as well as inserting permanent dental implants into the bone. We talked about bone grafting from my skull and placing it into my mouth, but my doctor decided that there was another way to make this possible, which leads us to what surgery 9 was all about.

Surgery #9-

This is me after I woke up after surger #9...

as well as Jojo, he's been with me every surgery I've gone into :)

       I wore an appliance that helds 5 fake front teeth on a retainer that hooked into two metal posts that were screwed into my upper jaw, for this surgery I had to remove this appliance for a few weeks. My doctor, Dr.Dierks, cut along the gumline where these 5 front teeth go and then cut back up under my nose on both ends of the incision. He then took a titanium mesh screen bent it and filled it with a "bone pudding". This bone pudding was a mix of cadaver bone powder (someone's dead crushed up bone) as well as some of my blood platelets. I figured out that they drew my blood from my ankle, because when I woke up in the recovery room  the nurse told me she was going to remove the IV from my ankle, something I didn't have in me when i went into the operating room. And so my doctor took the titanium mesh screen with the bone pudding and put it into my upper jaw and screwed it in. I have 5 screws in my jaw currently, 3 around the nasal base and two screwed into my gum line...Hopefully my body will take over the bone powder and begin to grow my own bone from that.

I now have 4-6 months to grow this bone in my upper jaw. With much prayer I believe that this bone will grow and continue to stregthen. Not only will this bone create the nasal base needed for next summer's nose surgery but it will also give my upper jaw the strength in the gumline for my next surgery sometime in the next 2-3 months. It is important that this bone grows and strengthens, because this next surgery my doctor will put in the base of the dental implants into this bone and if it's not strong enough or if there is not enough of it then the bone will not take the bases. From my last check up, which was two weeks out from my surgery, my doctor said that the bone was looking great! It has been 2 and a half months since my surgery, we are continuing to pray that this bone grows.

This surgery wasn't terribly painful. It was painful for the first few days as I was on painkillers and layed on the couch and drank everything I could. I was on a liquid diet for 11 days...dropped around 8 pounds from this surgery. The diet was painful, I was constantly hungry but was limited to what I could put into my mouth. My usual was a protein drink in the morning with my medicine then at lunch I drank soup from a mug and same with dinner. After a while those two things were no longer appealing to me as I started to stop drinking my protein drinks and that's where my weight dropped even more, because I wasn't willing to put the effort forward to take the best care of myself. I was lacking protein, vegetables and vitamins. But after the 11 days I was able to "graduate" to a soft food diet, a diet I will be on until May of 2012. As I will go through another surgery which will require the same diet as this one. I was sooo thankful to my family, and mostly mom who was always by my side and always there to help me when I was having a hard time or when I was in pain. I am also extremely thankful for my friends who came to visit me while I was recovering, I can't tell you enough how much that meant to me. It's always hard to go through something by yourself, but knowing that you have friends and family there by you as you push through it makes it all the better. So I thank you so much. I also thank all the people who prayed constantly for my surgery and to those who are still praying for this cadaver bone to continue to grow. That's what's needed most, prayer. This surgery was hard like any other, but just like the rest, my God is always with me in the times I need Him most.

(and we don't have a picture of my mouth currently because we couldn't get a very good one of the titanium mesh starting to poke through, plus the inside of my mouth looks kinda alien and didn't think the readers would  like seeing it, as it was slightly bothersome to my mom and I haha)

Surgery 6, 7, & 8...2008, 2009- "The Noodle Hole"

This is my “noodle hole” as we like to call it J


Surgery 6- Spring Break of 2008
      This surgery was to close a fistula (a hole) in my palate that never closed up. We like to call this hole the “noodle hole”, because I was able to put a spaghetti noodle into my mouth and within a little bit I was able to push it up and through the hole that connected to my nose and pull the noodle out my nose! It was rather impressive to my older brothers J
    This surgery was one of the very rare surgeries that it was left to just my mom and I. My dad took Lauren and Sam snowboarding for spring break while my mom and I stayed home and went through surgery #6! In this surgery my doctor tried to take surrounding tissue in my mouth and graft it together to fill in the hole, but unfortunately later on we found that the surgery was not entirely successful. It made a small difference but not enough to have fully closed up my hole. Which leads us to surgery #7 and #8.

Surgery #7- Summer of 2009
Because the last surgery tissue graft was unsuccessful for me there was one more procedure that could be performed to close this fistula. A two part, tongue sewing surgery.

On July 22, 2009 I went in for part 1 of a 2 step process of fully closing up this hole. In this surgery Dr. Dierks cut a “U” shape flap on the top of the tongue, folded it back and stuffed it up into the hole and sewed it in for 3 weeks. This part 1 was to graft my tongue tissue into the fistula. This surgery was one of the most panicking surgeries I’ve had. The first couple of nights were hard as I would continually bleed and have to have my mouth rinsed out with a syringe. The syringe would become a main helping tool throughout these 3 weeks. Try to imagine having your tongue sewn up and the challenge behind trying to eat and breathe. I had a panic attack one evening as I was trying to breathe and get used to having my tongue sewn up. But my mom was there every step of the way as she would keep me focused and would help me calm down and breathe. Another challenge for me was the diet I had to be on. As you could imagine trying to eat would be a challenge with a tongue sewn up. I started with only being on liquids, the nurses supplied us with a few different sizes of syringes. A couple small, medium and a huge one! I used the syringes to squirt liquids to the back of my throat so that I could get some things down. As the days progressed I was soon able to use the syringe to get a few jamba juices down, which I made a minor mess with one of those in a car J. We used the syringe to get down anything we could. From yogurts to even spaghetti o’s, but those made a mess for me one day as I tried to force it through the syringe, but I soon found out that the syringe couldn’t take the pressure and it exploded out the top! Soon I “graduated” from the fat syringe to baby spoons and even baby food. By the end of the 3 weeks I was able to cut up steak extremely small and fit a baby spoon to the back of my mouth and make do with that! :)

Surgery 8- Summer of 2009
3 weeks later I went back in to the hospital to get my tongue unsewn from the top of my palate. On that same day my sister Lauren would be flying in from spending 6-7 months in Ecuador! So we went in to the hospital early that morning, just as most if not all of my surgeries were at 7:30/ 8:30 in the morning. Which usually meant we would have to get up at 5 and be there 2 hours in advance for pre-op. Not the most pleasant thing, but I always loved watching the sunrise on the way up to the hospital in Portland. :) My doctor detached my tongue from the roof of my mouth and to this day I have a small patch of tongue attached to the roof of my mouth filling in the hole. It almost feels natural when I put my tongue back to the position it was in for 3 weeks, almost but not quite..I also got my front teeth removed in this surgery, as the roots of them were dying so the doctor decided it'd be best to combine pulling them out while I was already out for this surgery. I later was able to get an appliance that holds 5 fake teeth on a retainer. This is a "flipper" or better known as temporary implants. I went home the same day of my surgery and I felt good enough to make it back up to the airport with my family that evening to greet Lauren as she came back from Ecuador! :)

My dad's fun joke while I had my tongue sewn up was that I sounded just like Sid the Sloth from Ice Age. We went to see the second ice age I believe it was and I remember him leaning over in the theater and telling me how I sounded just like him haha! Something that's always gotten me through these surgeries is not only God, but as well as the positive spirit and attitude that we bring with it. My family is likes to laugh a lot and have fun as well as being serious when the time is needed, but having a family that's easy going and fun makes these surgeries all that much easier. Being able to laugh at yourself and turn what seems to be extremely hard into something positive makes the current circumstance not seem so hard afterall. "Attitude is Altitude"
This surgery was a challenge, especially the diet. I believe I dropped like 8-10 pounds in this surgery. My mom tried to get me to drink an Ensure through a syringe, but I drank about half of one of those and quit, they weren't so appetizing to me :) especially when you have to drink it through a syringe, it's that much more unpleasant. But I made it through, as I make it through all of my surgeries. The power of prayer makes so much difference, something as simple as praying can change anything. We always have been surrounded by family and friends who have prayed for me and these surgeries. I believe that prayer makes quite the difference.

A Suprise Letter

This is me in 5^th grade I had just received a letter from my birth mom. It was quite a surprise for me and my family, yet super exciting! She had explained exactly like we had heard her story and reason of why she had to let me go and how she thinks of me all the time and “hopes I never hold unforgiveness towards her for letting me go”. We sent this picture to her and I hope that she saw how blessed I am because of the choice she made to let me go…look me now J I am happy, blessed, loved and hope she understands this from this picture we sent to her. Even though we wrote her back and sent this picture and asked her questions, we have never heard from her since. Maybe someday, God willing, we will.

At the time I received this letter I saw it as important and exciting, but 4 years later and I look back I truly value this letter my birthmom sent me. As I've been writing this blog the realization of how much my birthmom sacrificed for me is almost sureal. To have received a letter from her in her own words  her story and reason of why she had to let me go showed me what it truly means to love someone. To love them enough to put them before yourself, to give them up with the hope that they could have something better if they were given the opportunity to have it. Just as she gave me the opportunity through adoption and look at me now where I am. Blessed beyond belief, in the most incredible family, a family I could have never have dreamed of being apart of. I was giving a new life away from her, a life I give fully back to God.

Ephesians 2:4-5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Surgery 5- 3rd Grade...2004

This is a picture of the scar from my healed hip where I had my bone graft.

 Surgery 5- 3^rd Grade

They took a piece of bone the size of a nickel out of my left hip and placed it up in my pre maxilla area, trying to create a more stable structure. This surgery was probably the most painful for me as I had to deal with the sharp pain from hip as well as having to learn the ways of getting up and down the stairs or bending in any way. I remember whenever I tried to lie down on a couch I had to use a step stool to get myself above the couch and then plop myself down without causing too much pain in my hip. My hip hurt more than my mouth in this surgery. My parents said I bounced back amazingly fast from this surgery.

This Surgery I very much remember. I had some rather intense pain in my hip, just try to imagine having bone scraped out of your hip and the pain that would be resulted from it. It was a struggle for me to get around, I stayed upstairs in my room for a good day or so and finally with the help of my mom made my way downstairs. I had a sticky plastic type of covering that was square that was placed over the incision from where the bone was taken to keep from anything getting into it. I remember receiving so many bouquets of flowers for this surgery as my room began to smell rather strong from all the different flowers :) . I tried to stay positive through it all and through all of these I just know that this is what I have to go through to become the best I can on the outside. God was and is always with me, he walks through it all with me. The pain and the joy each surgery brings. I know I dont always look the best through the recovering process from these surgeries but it's like that saying "sometimes it has to be worse before it can get better", each one of these surgeries are steps to the ending result. My God, my family and my friends always here to support me through all of this.

Surgery 4- 2nd Grade...2003

My sister, Lauren, who is ten years older than me, had her

First  picture taken at Sears on this funny brown carpet, so did

Carter and Sam (my two older brothers) so my mom went to sears after my lip was sewn and asked them if they had some fuzzy brown carpet. All because she wanted me to have the same picture as my siblings. J Aww how cute am I!

*notice how my nose and lip are connected, there is no nasal septum. Next surgery to come

Surgery 4- 2^nd Grade

This surgery was to create a nasal septum (getting my nose detached from my lip). As well as a small lip reconstruction. Dr. Dierks cut from one nostril to another, opened it up and rounded my nostrils in and up to create a septum. This surgery was pretty successful other than the tip of my nose dropped more than the doctor had hoped for, but he knew he would be reconstructing my nose once again when I was around 16.

Surgery 2 & 3- Sewing of the lips and palate

Surgery 2- Sewing of the lips
One of the biggest adjustments for me coming to America (I was too young to realize this at the time) was the language. I only understood Vietnamese and my family only spoke English. My mom had arranged for a speech therapist to come the very first week I had come home, knowing she would help me in the future. When she came in I was eating some bread, cheese and a banana, she signed in sign language to me those words. The next morning I was hitting my mom on the leg signing the word bread…good first word to sign to a baker family J My mom was like “oh my gosh!” and she ran and got her sign language book she had gotten years ago in college and realized that this was going to be very helpful. So she started teaching me “toddler talk” ex. “Help, more, hungry, thirsty, toilet J”  She was amazed at how quickly I caught on, this became the way we communicated until I would have my palate sewn together.

The biggest change for my family was to see my mouth sewn together. They were so used to seeing me and all my beauty…? J  That having my lips sewn together was a huge change. They always accepted me how I was, yet knew I would change eventually but when the time came they were still surprised.

                             One week after my second surgery (lips sewn together)

Surgery 3-May

After my lips were sewn together I later had my palate sewn together, unfortunately we were not able to get a picture of this. The downside to this procedure was that I was unable to eat any solid food for 3 weeks. I was strictly on a liquid diet. I had to allow the palate to fully form together and the tissue to build up before any pressure could be applied to it. This was much of a struggle for me, because I LOVED food J I would eat practically anything I could. My mom felt so bad for me that sometimes she would have my siblings eat in a separate room than me, because it was too hard for her to see 3 of her children eating and one of them having to be only on liquids.

I love how supportive my family has always been for me. As they accepted me from the day they got me, they saw me and took me in to help me become the best I could be. My mom has told me that when my dad first saw a picture of me he covered up my mouth, looked at my eyes and new that I was the girl they were to adopt. It was all according to God's plan. Jeremiah 29:11

January 1998- My First Surgery

My first surgery was to get my “pre maxilla” * back far enough to sew my lips together, the piece under my nose is actually my lip. The challenge for the doctor was to connect the side of my lip to the piece under my lip to the other side of my lip. In order to do this the doctors would have to put in a latham device, it is used to decrease the width of my cleft to make the repair easier. It is a pin that went through my pre maxilla with two screws into my jaw bone and two rubberbands that my mom would tighten once a week. This would bring my bone back in far enough to sew my lips together.

My mom would have to sit on me with my arms under her knees in order to do this, she would tighten the rubberbands as fast as she could and I would smile within seconds J  It was more uncomfortable than painful. Once my bone was in place to proceed forward; I went in for my second surgery.

The actual sewing of my lips together.

I don't actually remember any of this from when I was two, but from what I hear from my mom, I was and still am incredibly blessed by God to have been put into such a wonderful supportive family!

Day 1 to Year 2...October 15, 1995- September 8, 1997

I was born  on October 15, 1995, in Danang, Vietnam to a single 36 year old woman. I was her first and only child. She saw that I was born with a cleft lip and palate* and immediately took me to the hospital. The doctor said "no money, no fix". My birthmom was extremely poor, and had no way of being able to afford to pay for the many surgeries I would need to fix my mouth. She was left with a heartbreaking decision, would she keep me and not fix my mouth or put me up for adoption so that I may have the chance to be adopted into a family that could afford to fix my mouth? She chose out of LOVE to put me up for adoption with the hope that I may have the chance at a better life. The director of the orphanage in Danag, Dao, came and picked me up to take me back to the orphanage with her. She gave me the name Thuong Thi Doan which translates to Lovely Poem.
I lived at the orphanage for almost two years, until my new family, Mike, Julie and Lauren Scheel (with Carter and Sam waiting at home) came to pick me up in Vietnam. I was officially adopted on September 8, 1997.

I look back at how the start of my life unfolded. Had I not been born with a cleft lip and palate, I would not be here today writing my story for all of you to read. I wouldn't be here now with the experiences I've been through and with such strong faith in a God who has loved me from the start. I've never thought "why me?" or "why did God have to create me this way?", I understand why it had to be this way, it's all according to God's plan. The ultimate plan.
Just try to begin to imagine what it might be like having to make the decision to give up your own baby girl, with only the hope and prayer that she would be adopted into a good loving family who would be able to care for her and pay for all the expenses of her surgeries...to give her away and have no control of where she could end up. I can't even begin to understand what that day...week...month would have been like. My mom has said that once you become a mother you will find it even more unbelievable of what she has done for me. My birthmom had this unbelievable amount of love for me, to be willing to give me up and let me go, so that I could be given the chance at a better life...it's incomprehensible. Yet, this was God's plan for my life.

*A cleft lip and palate is a birth defect that affects 1 in 700 births in the US. It is most common among Asians, 1 in 400, and third common in European Indians 1 in 1500, least in African Americans.
*The definition of a cleft lip and palate is- "Orofacial clefts are birth defects in which there is an opening in the lip and/or palate (roof of the mouth) that is caused by incomplete development during early fetal formation."

This is my birthmother (left), coming to see me at the orphanage

This is me sitting on the swing holding the white teddy bear with all my orphange friends

This is Dao holding me on my official adoption day

Introduction to my journey

This is my story, my testimony, this is our story...my family and I. Mostly my mom and I as she has supported me and always ALWAYS been there for me, through all my pain, and all my joy of these surgeries. This is His story, God's plan above all. I've always been told that God didn't accidently forget to form my mouth, as he created with me a cleft lip and palate. He had a plan, a plan before I was even born. Just as Jeremiah 1:5 states "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart..."
I believe my story was created by God to bring people to him, and that I was created to be used by Him to touch other's lives through my testimony. I hope that as you read this, my story will reveal to you my God's great power and his hand in my life.
I hope you enjoy reading our journey from day one, as well as through each surgery, and our journey now as I am on my downhill slope of all my surgeries.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plan I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future..."