Drinking from a straw, ENT visit

August 31, 2006 By 1 Comment


Emily has mastered the art of drinking from a straw thanks to yummy yogurt drinks that have been Ana’s addiction for a year. Emily will now say “yo-drink” when she wants one and she can drink from a straw without any trouble at all. It’s really gratifying to see her do this. I thought it was something we’d have to really work with her to do, but she picked it up very quickly once she got her first sip of yummy yogurt.

I took Emily to see an ENT for the first time yesterday because we were instructed by NYU to bring her to an ENT for routine visits every six months to check her tubes. Just as I suspected, she’s lost the tube in her right ear. Dr. Very (the ENT) said he saw it in the ear canal but not in the ear drum. The good news is that he tested her for fluid and there was none. I told him about this horrible cold she had a month or so ago and he said that was a good sign – kids with chronic ear infections can take months to drain after a cold.

He didn’t have any knowledge about treating kids with clefts and seemed puzzled as to why I’d want to retube her if she didn’t have fluid. So I said, “well, I don’t want to retube her, but I thought we had to.” He also seemed surprised when I told him she’d need tubes until she was 7 or 8. I’ve already sent an e-mail to NYU to see if we need to retube her as a precaution, or if we can take a wait and see approach.

She was really good at the ENT – she cooperated (much to my shock) and let the doctor look in her ear. I’d kept talking about it on the way there, and playing with her ears. I also told her it wouldn’t hurt and it would be ok (something I now do before brushing her hair which seems to calm her down).

She was such a good girl. in the waiting room everyone kept raving about how cute and pretty she was. One woman said she should do commercials! I was like, “uh, I don’t think that’s going to happen.” And she was honestly perplexed as to why not – when I said she had a cleft lip she was stunned. She raved to the point where I burst into tears! Now that’s a tribute to NYU, NAM and Dr. Cutting.

Filed Under: Cleft Lip

Emily’s dancing video

August 23, 2006 By Leave a Comment


This is one of Emily’s dance moves. She runs around in a circle singing at the top of her lungs.

Emily had her monthly speech therapy visit the other day and she’s doing well. Nothing much has changed since the last visit except her therapist now thinks sheis talking out of the side of her mouth a bit too much (it’s called lateral talking or something like that). She also talks too fast, blending her words together and often drops the last consonant sound from a word. This combination makes it very difficult to understand her. However, she can say certain words very clearly and pleasantanly surprised her therapist by using consonant combinations very well for some words (she can say the “tr” in “truck” very well, for example).

I explained that the words we use often with Emily (such as “truck” because she loves trucks) are the ones she says very clearly. Apparently this is actually a speech therapy technique called auditory bombardment. That is, saying a word and a sound over and over again even if the child doesn’t repeat it, in order to teach the child how to make that sound. We will continue to work with Emily to help her separate her words into syllables and get better pronunciation from some of the more difficult words (the ones where she needs to use her top lip).

I’ll also send an e-mail to the NYU speech therapist about her top lip, which seems like it has very little mobility even now (nearly two years after her lip surgery). It’s not tight like it first was, it’s just kind of, well, stationary when she talks.

By the way, Emily is doing great with potty training despite a setback due to a stomach bug (we were all traumatized by that one!) Her speech therapist was amazed that she was wearing underwear and asking to go on the potty all on her own. That’s my brilliant girl! (Isn’t it amazing how we attribute intelligence to being able to pee on a bowl?)

Filed Under: Cleft Lip, Speech