Cleft Team

We had Calli's first meeting with the entire cleft team on April 21st. When we brought her home, we started with just meeting with our craniofacial surgeon, who heads up the cleft team, and the ENT. Once we got past her palate closure, Dr. T said he wanted us to come meet with the cleft team in April. So we've had a good long break from doctor's appointments! It's been nice, but we've also been looking forward to this appointment, just to hear how she is healing and find out what some next steps are.

The cleft team consists of the plastic surgeon, the craniofacial surgeon, a dentist, an orthodontist, a geneticist, a speech pathologist, the ENT, and then the coordinator. They meet together once a month, and any cleft patients that they all need to see come to Dr. T's office on that day, we stay in one room, and they rotate through meeting with us. Then they meet all together at the end of the day, talk about the patients, and write up their notes. We knew it would take several hours. We weren't sure how Calli would do, but she did so great! She actually opened her mouth for all the doctors, she was friendly, and she didn't get too tired until the very end.

Dr. T saw her first, and we enjoyed our visit with him! He's so great. He said that Calli's scar is looking great and healing well. Her vertical scars are blending in well and aren't too red, but the scars right under her nostrils are a bit red. He said that there is something we can do about that, but unless it starts to bother her as she grows, we'll just let it be. We saw the other craniofacial surgeon, the one who will work with Dr. T on her surgeries when she has the bone grafting, and he said that she is right on track and she'll be ready to have that surgery in that 7-9 year old time frame.

The dentist saw her and said that everything looks good and she can start seeing the pediatric dentist we take the big girls to for regular cleanings. Our ENT wasn't there to check her tubes, so we will go see him next month.

Finally, we went to see the speech pathologist. She did a simple assessment on Calli, having her say lots of words, and was able to make some recommendations for us. She said that although Calli's vocabulary is growing well, her articulation is not good at all (which we knew), and that we needed to start articulation therapy at least once a week. She said that she has learned how to pronounce a lot of sounds wrongly, and that the correct articulation will only be gained through direct teaching - she won't just eventually pick it up on her own.

So, we talked with her about her recommendations and she put us in touch with a private speech therapy clinic here in LJ. We have already met with them and they did an evaluation and started her in articulation therapy two times a week. We are hopeful that this will help her make good progress in her articulation!

And, other than that, we don't go back to the cleft team for two years! We'll enjoy this break! We're so proud of our little rock star. She's so smart and we're so thankful for how well she's done this past year.