6 Month Check up for Ella

Yesterday Ella had multiple appointments at the hospital to check her progress since her surgery six months ago. She started with Speech to take the nasality test again. Its a tool attached to a computer. We hold it between her nose and upper lip and Ella says things like papapapapapapa and mamamamamama, sssssssssssssssss, babababa, cacacaca, shashashasha and the machine registers her results in blue lines on the screen. The resulting numbers are compared to the norm to determine levels of nasality. Ella sat through the test 100% which was better than last time. She was a little clingy at first but found her comfort zone pretty fast. The therapist sent the information to Ella's Doctor and we went to the height and weight room. Ella is 32 lbs and I forgot her height - I think it was 40.6 inches.

Originally they had us scheduled for physical therapy at 1, speech at 2 and Dr Wood at 3. When we got there they figured out that someone got therapy happy because Ella doesn't need physical therapy. So they moved up speech to 1 and left Dr Wood at 3 so we had some time to kill. Thankfully Gillette has a great play room. Ella played very well and I just followed her from place to place. They also had a craft station staffed by a volunteer. We took advantage of that and Ella colored a fan. Then it was our turn. Dr Wood was running a little late but the appointment was quick. Per the speech therapy they felt Ella was hyper nasal still but he didn't agree. Dr Wood asked Ella if she could count. By then she was showing some stubborn streak and just looked at him. So I tried, I held up my index finger and asked what number that was (hoping it would start the count down). Still no reply. So, he asked her to say puppy and ball and she did. He decided we would wait 6 months which I was fine with. I asked what would happen if he agreed with the hyper nasality. He said we would need to put Ella on a scope to see in her mouth, throat and nasal cavity to see if the holes needed adjustments. So glad we can put that off for awhile and hopefully she will continue to improve and won't need surgery again.

And just to show me she understood everything - while we we walking in the parking lot to get to the stairs to get to the level we parked on, the little stinker started counting. ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN.... ta da.

UPDATE:
Beth, my day care provider, called me at work today laughing. Ella was riding one of those Fischer Price cars and was trying to honk the horn and yelling out, COME ON MOVE ALREADY. I promise I don't honk the horn when I say those things in my car. :-)