Lucy is almost three weeks post op!  She is cleared to return to normal activities which is so exciting.  She has been excited to return to playing basketball.  She joined a spring team and has been watching practices with them until she can play again.  The let her on the team based on her playing that saw during her school season since she missed tryouts.  I sent these pictures to Dr. Siebert and he said she still has some areas that are healing.  Some areas are still a little swollen and it will still be a few more weeks until she is fully recovered and healed.  We truly feel that Dr. Siebert has given Lucy back a face that's pretty darn close to the original.  I still look at her sometimes and wonder what she would look like if none of this ever happened.  I wonder if she looks like me. Do we have similar features?  After each surgery I have to get use to her "new" face.  I find myself studying her changes and staring at her.  Lucy knows it and will laugh at me as I look at her.  She will always tell me everything is fine.  I have a period of time that I mourn her face after each surgery.  I mourn the loss of the face that I had just gotten used to, and I mourn all over again that this is a part of her life.  There are still days I question if we did the right thing by doing all these surgeries.  Was the pain all worth going through and did we truly get the best results.  When I look at her and the results we have and when I hear her talk about how happy she is, I know we did the right thing.  There are some areas that will always show marks of her disease and aren't worth messing with over and over again.  At some point you realize this is Lucy and this is her face for right now.  I know that she knows this face is just temporary for her time here on earth.  She knows that someday in heaven she will have a perfect face and we will get to see what she is supposed to look like.  I also know that no matter how many surgeries we do and no matter what her face looks like she is still my little Lucy.  That twinkle in her eye and the bright smile she has will always be the same to me.  I know that while her features might not look a lot like mine there are other features and characteristics of mine that she can inherit and that is more meaningful.