Yearly Cleft Clinic

Today was our yearly cleft clinic for Abigail.  The first 2 years she attended the MUSC cleft clinic in Charleston, SC.  Since we have moved, we got into the clinic at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Our amazing little nerd reading a book about
Assateague Island horses

During her 4 morning sessions, Abigail saw the audiologist, the speech therapist, an ENT, and the dentist.  It was discovered that her right ear tube is out and is causing hearing loss in that ear, that her speech is excellent for a kid her age ("three" sounds like "free" for example) but all of her possible troublesome cleft sounds are fine.  (Although, it did take a home video and a mini bag of Doritos for the speech therapist to get enough info about Abigail's speaking abilities  and don't you dare judge us for bribing!!)

After a quick lunch break, Abigail saw the plastic surgeon and then fell asleep in Larry's arms for our sessions with the psychologist and the geneticist.  

Lar and I were not initially blown away by the team:  they weren't bad or anything, but from what we have experienced, audiologists and speech therapists are a special breed of patient, saintly people and must be like that everywhere.  ENTs are all business, which is their job, so that is good too.  So given the horrible traffic (it was 1.5 hours to get there and 2.5 hours to get home!!) we were thinking of switching to the Richmond clinic next year.  Then we met Dr. Oh (plastic surgeon) and the British psychologist, who sounds like a genius just because of her accent and we were hooked on the DC clinic.  

Recent family pic

Abigail was such a trooper, really.  Larry and I were incredibly proud of her, how she behaved, and how she comported herself.  She cooperated all day (besides the little bribe in the speech evaluation) and was polite and not moody or difficult.  Then she peacefully fell asleep in her Baba's arms, which just made him melt.  
I also know that I am lucky beyond belief that this amazing, intelligent, funny, clever, beautiful, creative little individual is my daughter.  Not a day goes by that I don't think about that.  And when I am in a children's hospital all day, and I see the Huge problems that so many kids are facing, I am scared out of my mind at my  own good luck and fortune.  I can't even wrap my mind around it sometimes!