Postop Followup

We had a postoperative followup with both of her surgeons and the audiology clinic.  As always, she enjoyed riding the elevators all over the hospital.  She did get very quiet when seeing the cleft palate surgeon because I do think she remembered him and what he meant (pain) to her.  After we just talked and he let her slide down the dentist chair instead of sitting in it!  He peaked in her mouth with the mirror while she sat with me and that was all he needed.  He told me he was extremely pleased with how it looks.  The palate is raising up like it should (I never thought of it as doing that, but I look in there almost everyday), and the scars are looking like they should and no stretching or pulling.  He was also happy to hear her making so much noise and asked about her speech progress as a whole.  We also talked about her nasal regurgitation.  I told him how it only comes out of one nostril now and only when it is something more liquidy.  He explained that her swallowing and chewing will take a long time to change as she was so used to holding her tongue one way to help her swallow and she is probably still doing it.  He is confident it will change and remedy the regurgitation.

Next we headed off to the ENT Clinic and met with the surgeon who put in her tubes.  She didn't really care about his presence because he never looked in her mouth!  The tubes were perfect and they had no concerns.  We will see them again in 6 months and then they might even be able to come out!  Then she can have bubble baths again because the soap won't cling to the plastic tubes and cause ear aches from clogging up as it dries!

Lastly, we had a hearing check that was finally successful.  I laughed when the ENT Clinic told me her files from the other office we have tried to get her hearing checked said she wasn't cooperative.   The kid normally sits on my lap and makes no sound.  The first time she cried because it turned out she had a slight ear infection.  At the followup she did't make a peep but they didn't have adapters that were small enough to fit in her ears.  She would sit there and as the test was going on the tube would slowly work its way out and fall in her lap.  The third attempt was the same with the tubes not fitting.  The woman even said to me that they didn't have tubes small enough to stay in her ears and then made a followup for a month later (I remember thinking, how are the tubes going to fit in a month if they don't fit now!?).  I missed the fourth attempt and they never called to say I missed it or make a followup.  It is the same office that I go to every 3 weeks for speech pathology but I'm starting to wonder if they actually scheduled that last attempt or if I imagined that phone call!  Either way, this time she sat on my my lap perfectly and didn't flinch at the tubes being put in (ones that were small enough because they didn't budge once they were fit) and she passed with flying colours.  The woman said the volume response is just below ideal but she thinks it is because her canals are so narrow because everything else was perfect.  This was good to know to finally have a baseline for her hearing!

So, that was 6 months from the last visit.  We will probably go to 12-month intervals after the next one.  She is best case scenario for them all! (Us too!)