We went to our cleft team appointment at St Louis Children's hospital on friday. It was awesome to see everyone on a team at once and to have all concerns that are possible addressed in one morning. We saw dentistry, plastic surgery, psychology, audiology, ent, and speech. The team seems great, the plastic surgeon is recommending the same thing our PS did in phoenix, a surgery before kindergarten to revise the lip surgery and corrective surgery on the nose. The speech told us we needed to be a lot more dumb around andy and make him work to make sounds for what he wants. She said if he wasn't making p and b sounds in a few months then we need to do more regular therapy. And to encourage him to make sounds with all requests, not just signs and definately not just pointing (his favorite thing to do is point and say uuuhhh? when he wants something). He communicates very well, just not with words. The audiologist said that Andy has sufficient hearing in at least one ear, he wouldnt tolerate testing to evaluate each ear. But they said that was typical for his age.
So everything was good, nothing too exciting right now, just work on the speech. It's hard not to respond in the way that we are used to....because he is able to make his needs known, we really have to stop and think not to respond to his pointing.
The other exciting thing right now is that Andy came down with pneumonia....and asthma like symptoms. The fun never ends....
Must go, children tearing up the house..... :)
KAren