Julia update

We're back from Julia's appt. and boy is she a trooper. Shannon(her speech therapist) did the scope of her throat--which basically involves stick a lighted camera up her nose and down her throat and watching how her throat closes off when she talks. It sounds worse then it is since there is a combo of Afrin and lidocaine(I think) used to numb it up first. Julia was perfect--no flinching, pulling things with her hands, or moving her head. The scope showed two things. One adenoid tissue--which she is using to close off her airway when she talks. According to Dr. Del that won't go away until age 11 or 12. The second is a gap when she tries to close things off--so the air goes up her nose instead of out her mouth. So, there are two surgeries involved here. First, one to remove the adenoid tissue. I imagine that's just a day surgery. Then, a minimum of 6 weeks later, a sphincter put in. This is so much better then a p-flap. With a p-flap there is a fairly high risk of sleep apnea (I think 60-70%). With a sphincter, it's 3%. And the effectiveness of this correcting her speech--along with speech therapy of course since its a tool --is 98%. So, now we just wait to see when her surgeries are going to be. During the time frame between surgeries--her speech is going to totally suck. So, I'm going to have to go and talk to her teachers about this and make them aware of what is happening. We also found the source of the frequent nose bleeds. A big prominent blood vessel. So starting the vaseline and Q-tip treatment. Yes, that's what I said. If that works--great. If not, cauterize the blood vessel and there is still the vaseline and Q-tip while it's healing.
Poor Julia--I think she's starting to realize how involved I am with the cleft stuff. There was a resident there who I have worked with besides the nursing assistants, multiple nurses, speech therapists and nurses, social worker (who I've known for years outside of work), genetics, audiology, dentist. Just tons of people. Everyone is saying how much they miss me and glad to see me, yada yada. God I hope I can get back there soon. I miss the clinic. Anyways, as we are walking out, I get the hand on the hip and the look from Miss Julia with the comment "do you know EVERYBODY?" with that 6 year old attitude. All I could do was laugh. Funny thing is Ted has said that to me to in the past. Hummmmm.