Update on Hanna's Appointment

Hanna's visit to UNC went well.  Hanna did fantastic and only got a little uncooperative at the very end with the dentist (I think she was a little scared of the chair) but it was a long day for her by then, so all in all she did great.  Everyone was impressed with her original surgery, happy with the way they repaired her lip and palate.  It looks like she will only need two surgeries.  One at around age (6-7) or sooner if we opt, and one when she is approx. 17. They don't see a lot of maintenance with her.  That was such a relief because we weren't really sure what we were facing.  We met with an oral surgeon, plastic surgeon, ENT, social worker, child psychologist, speech therapist and dentist.  They meet as a team at the end of each day to discuss all the patients and send a full report of everyones thoughts and recommendations (a repeat of what you discussed in person, but allows you to listen during the visit and not feel like you have to memorize everything they say to you during the half day appointment).  The speech therapist was most concerned with the fistula (hole in the front of her mouth) because of the speech problems it could cause.  He recommended we put her in speech therapy immediately.  He was already hearing in her words that her tongue was going further back in the roof of her mouth to avoid the gap.  The plastic surgeon said if it bothers us they could repair "tomorrow" and he was going to weigh the feedback from the speech therapist heavily, but he was inclined to wait.  The concern with waiting is that sometimes speech problems are harder to repair after the habits have been formed.  I am going to see what the final recommendation is and go from there.

They also think she may have some hearing loss, so we need to get a full hearing test performed in the next few weeks.  They did a test and her inner ear didn't register like they would have liked...I haven't had any concerns with loss of hearing, but I am glad to get additional screening.  More work to be done, but feel good about what the future holds for our little girl.  Thanks for all those who have checked in on us to see how it went.