Cleft Clinic

Last Thursday we took Anna to her annual cleft clinic. I must say I am very grateful for these clinics where all the doctors come to us. Here is what they said.

Plastic surgeon: She will have a lip and nose revision around five years old. There is nothing she can do about the scar on Anna's lip. She doesn't understand why doctors use that technique. (Good to know...not.) Anna has a good palate, especially for a kid with bilateral cleft palate repair.

Oral surgeon: He will do the bone graft when she is 8 or 9. If her two top teeth need to be pulled in the next few years, he will do that.

Pediatric Dentist: She needs to go under so he can put fillings in her two top teeth and hopefully save them for a few more years.

ENT: One tube has fallen out so she needs new tubes. She should get them same time as the fillings but the doctors work at two different hospitals. I'm waiting to hear from them about how we are going to go about it so she doesn't have to have surgery twice.

Pediatrician: She looks good.

Speech Therapist: She is a "backer". She is making sounds using only the back of the mouth. She can say k, g, and m really well. She can say l and r at the end of words. She can say all vowel sounds. Everything else she is approximating with the k and g. So that explains why she says "goggles" perfectly clear! (Mia understands EVERYTHING Anna says and translates for me when needed.) She will be starting private speech therapy on Friday. (She will still get services through the county at home and then at a preschool starting in August.)

Audiologist: Hearing is good!