Happy Chinese New Year (a bit late)! We celebrated with several other families at a local restaurant. Zach's preschool teacher also read the book by Karen Katz, My First Chinese New Year to his class while Zach passed out red envelopes filled with chocolate coins.
We had a follow-up appointment with the cleft team yesterday. Since Zach's pharyngeal flap surgery in November, his speech has greatly improved. Things are just starting to click for him. He's just started figuring out the correct airflow for 'sh' and 'ch' sounds, which is huge! Speech no longer is nasal. His 's' sounds are still a bit distorted, so we will be trying a new therapy technique for those. My college friend, Lori, gets to be his speech therapist, then I help him practice at home. We are so thankful for our great cleft team and Lori's help!
Mason also saw the cleft team yesterday. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with his speech. He's just got so much going on---articulation errors due to his history of cleft, but also other articulation difficulties. Thankfully we got some wisdom from the cleft team speech therapist yesterday, so I feel like we've got some direction now. Mason's speech is still very nasal. His surgeon wants to do another surgery to help that. This would be the same surgery that Zach just had--a pharyngeal flap. It will help so his palate can do its job when he's speaking--to keep that air from escaping from his nose while his talking. We can expect that surgery to be in the next 1-2 months, depending on insurance authorization and scheduling. Back to yogurt, pudding and ice cream here in the Kragel home:) Mason will also be getting a new set of ear tubes during that surgery, as his other ones are not doing their job. Oh, and the fistula (the small hole) in the palate that did not heal shut from his last surgery will be stitched up during this upcoming surgery. The poor guy has got a long way to go speech wise, but he 's come so far in the first 3 years of his life......he's traveled half way across the world, not to mention learn a new language, come to enjoy new food, and adjust to his crazy new family!
We've managed to find time to do some fun things--not just speech therapy and doctor appts! Zach took a Zumba class last month. He's got quite the dance moves!
