Hanging out at Gillette's

Yesterday was Ella's yearly Cleft Team review.  As expected, she rocked it!

Since it was a summer day, I took the day off and brought Elizabeth too.  Elizabeth loves to be part of the action and turned out to be an amazing help.

First stop was to check in at Height and Weight - Ella is 46 lbs and just a little bit under 46 inches. 

Next we went across the skyway to the new building to visit with Kelly, the Speech Therapist.  Ella passed all the speech tests with flying colors.  It makes me proud because Ella is so open to working hard in speech therapy at school and it shows in the results.  The only issues remaining are related to Ella's cleft and the air escaping due to where the cleft and missing tooth are in her mouth as well as normal progression of every child's speech patterns.  The cleft issue will be addressed in a few years when Ella has a bone graft done.  We also talked about Ella's tonsils.  I guess they are pretty big so I expect there will be surgery in the near future to help her.  Right now it is not needed as the tonsils are not affecting her sleep and she is not getting infections.  If either of those change, we will discuss options. We also talked about how Ella has to have the TV louder than Elizabeth or I.  Elizabeth also told Kelly that Ella doesn't listen to me well.  Kelly was pretty funny and said that Listening and Hearing are two different things and that we can check Ella's hearing but there isn't much they can do about her listening.  :-)

After speech we visited with Dr. Woods (surgeon).  He thought Ella was doing great and he talked to us about the bone grafting.  It won't happen until Dr Cermain (dentist) determines it's time but he told us it would mean an night in the hospital followed by two weeks of a liquid diet.... YIKES that will be very hard on Ella.  I am glad Dr Woods brought it up so we can all start answering Ella's many questions.  Because she processes things based on questions so there will be alot and they will be asked many times. 

Our next stop ended up being the hardest of all.  This visit was with the wonderful pediatric dental team led by Dr. Cermain.  They are wonderful and treat everyone well.  But, Ella's retainer had broken last week and when they looked at it they saw it needed total replacement.  Ella has had that done twice now and she HATES it.  I can't blame her at all.  The goop to make the mold of her mouth is very gross and the glue is a horrible taste.  So, Ella got pretty upset.  Elizabeth did a great job of reminding Ella that she knows how it feels but to just breath and it will soon be done.  That was very helpful but the one that deserves the most credit is Ella - she was very upset but she showed such strength by continuing to open her mouth as they worked on her.  I am very proud of both of my girls and am thankful for the whole team at Gillette's. 

Ella also had her hearing checked and she is hearing just fine.  So, it looks like she may have a listening issue - again it is nice to know my kids are normal.   ;-)

We got to Gillette's at 7:45 am and left at 12:00 - it was a long morning and we stopped at McD's for lunch and then the girls went to their summer program.  I had a meeting with my financial planner and then I had about an hour to myself. 

This weekend we have our family reunion and I am very much looking forward to that.  I hope the humidity eases and the storms stay away but we can't wait to see everyone!