Monday, March 7, 2011

Officially Finished with Post-Op!

We had Anna's second post-op check today with her plastic surgeon.  While the fistula appears to be closed it is not completely as her palate is is still "dimpled" at the fistula location.  We are hopeful that it will be closed off enough that we can put off the repair until she has her bone graft done around age 7.  Our hope comes from Anna learning to and being able to suck as well as no more food coming out of her nose.  The surgeon said that further healing is going to do what it is going to do so she lifted the pureed/soft foods diet.  Whoo-hoo!!!  That little girl is understandably DONE with pureed and soft foods.  Since the repair I think she has consumed a gallon and a half of yoghurt.  Tonight at dinner she chowed down.  She ate everything.  Peppers, tomatoes, raw mushrooms, sausage...  Our next appointment is in 6 months and that will be a team visit (surgeon, ENT, speech, psychologist, social worker, and on and on).  Everyone and their brother is how our surgeon described it today.  
Speech therapy is going better.  The therapist spoke with a number of colleagues who have experience with cleft kids and did some more thinking and looking around at resources.  The textbook arrived too and while I have just started, it is giving me a lot of hope and direction.  Anna has started with the a and o sound as well as achieving some volume control with mama.  I think she is actually using her mouth rather than her throat to produce those sounds too.  
The REALLY big accomplishment though since surgery has been that Anna learned the basics of the chicken dance.  She showed her new moves off to the University of DE therapist the next day.     
THANK YOU to those of you who have prayed for the healing of the fistula and who have passed on thoughts regarding speech therapy!  I still want to thank some of you individually yet!

1 comment:

bev moyer said...

absolutely adorable!! and congrats to ALL of you for all the progress!!

March 23, 2011 at 12:32 PM

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