Catching Up: Halloween, Cleft Clinic, Speech

A couple weeks ago Hannah met her friend Ana Claire and new friend McKenzie at Chick-Fil-A to eat and play. Originally, the plan had been to meet at the park and for the kids to wear their costumes. But, it turned a bit cold that day so we changed plans. Hannah still wanted to wear her costume, so she did. She was tinkerbell (she debated between tinkerbell and spiderman and in the end chose tinkerbell)




Hannah loved trick-or-treating. We went early, right after school in fact. A community nearby has a street where all the businesses let kids tirck-or-treat at their stores in the afternoon. We saw several friends from school there. I loved it because it was early. She wore her costume, trick-or-treated, got lots of candy, had a blast AND we were home by 5:30. We popped popcorn, put a movie in, and handed out candy to those who came to our house.

(Hannah wasn't a bit afraid to reach in to this goulish hand for candy)

The next day was our Fall Festival at school. Hannah had a blast, but unfortunately I was kept too busy with my class to have gotten good pictures of her. Last night, we had "movie night" at our house. Hannah wanted her baby doll and animals to join us for the movie.

A couple weeks ago, we went back to the cleft clinic for Hannah's one year post-surgery check-up. Her palate looked great and Dr. Grant was pleased at her progress in speech as well. Her ears looked great and her hearing tested completely normal. We talked about what's next and we scheduled her next surgery. Hannah will have a revision done of her lip / nose surgery (that was done in China) in early June. Dr. Grant told us that compared to the palate surgery, this one is easy. Keep her out of a pool for about a week and put sunscreen on the scar. That's it. No food restrictions at all - she can eat whatever she wants afterwards. Yeah! He also said there is typically very little pain with this surgery and in fact they usually don't even prescribe pain medicine but just reccomend over-the-counter pain medicine if needed.

Hannah did fabulous for most of the 3 hour appointment. But, our speech evaluation was last and she was starting to get tired and whining by then. The speech lady was courteous and professional, but not overly "nice" or playful. Hannah decided she was finished. She basically shut down and refused to talk. It's a little hard to get a speech evaluation done if the child won't make any sound! ha! When I insisted she had to cooperate (she had to name pictures and repeat back phrases - both of which she can do), she fell apart. She finally did manage to pull it together enough to finish and when she did, she did great. She still has a good number of errors in her articulation, but is making huge progress. Her use of language has actually become more of an issue than the articulation now (somethiing we already knew) but she has fabulous therapists right now that are working hard with her on that. The reccomendation was to keep doing what we're doing with her speech at school and at the university.

Speaking of her speech at the university, let me share a story about that. After we finished with the cleft clinic (with all the drama at the speech evaluation part), we stopped by McDonald's for lunch and went home for a nap. I had to wake Hannah up early from her nap to get her to her speech therapy appointment on time (at the university). I had seriously thought about cancelling for the day because I knew Hannah was tired, cranky, and had had enough professionals for the day. But, because these are students who work with her, they have to get so many hours in for their certification. We had cancelled one appointment already this semester to go to the beach. (She goes twice a week for 7 weeks in this semester). I don't want to cause our therapist to not get her hours in, both for her sake and so that we will be invited to return next semester. The services are very good. So, I got Hannah up and we went. She was saying on the way there "no more speech - I tired". I watched through the observation room to see how she reacted because I really wasn't expecting much effort at all this session because of how tired she was. Well, her therapist went all out! The week before, they had worked on L sounds and Hannah had told her "I do it when I get older" and "I not old enough yet". HA!! So this week, her therapist set up a party. She had balloons and banners on the wall with the words "Congratulations: Happy L Day". She had a cupcake and juice for Hannah and all kids of princess things (rings, crown, fuzzy boa). She told Hannah they were having a party because now she WAS old enough to say the L sound. Hannah's eyes lit up and she ended up having a blast. She still struggles with the L sound and that 45 minutes didn't work miracles for that, but it did work miracles for her willingness to make the effort. Hannah tried so hard the whole time and did it all with a big smile on her face. I teared up watching her, I guess because I was so relieved that for this day, speech was not a struggle. I wish we could keep this therapist, but part of the program is that we change students every semester. Oh well, I haven't heard of anyone with a negative experience so I think they're all good. I'm just thankful that we got the one we did this semester!