And Off Come the Training Wheels

A few weeks back, Rachel decided she wanted Daddy to take off her training wheels on her bike. And so he did. And after a few tries and Daddy running behind her, she was off....and she's been riding training wheel free ever since! She's a pro!!

To Reschedule or Not to Reschedule the Procedure??

After talking over the events surrounding yesterday's attempted procedure and a few other details surrounding the recommended procedure, with a friend and trusted medical professional, we are going to not reschedule the procedure.

Dr. Martin did not see visible fistula upon examining Rachel's palate so at this time we're going to wait and see if the hyper-nasality continues to lessen.

Procedure Update

Knowing that Rachel's procedure was fully covered in prayer this morning, it didn't feel right when so many things were wrong.

They Rachel scheduled for a procedure that required sedation!!! The insurance coverage wasn't what I thought it should be. And there was just a lot of confusion surrounding all the financial stuff.

So I opted to not have the procedure done and we came home.

Thank You all for your prayers surrounding this appointment, they really were appreciated!!!


"For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace..."
1 Corinthians 14:33

Prayers for a Procedure

Tomorrow morning, (check in at 9:00, procedure at 9:30), Rachel will be having a special procedure done to rule out the possibility of a fistula (hole) in her palate.

The procedure is called a fistulagram and it involves her swishing contrast around in her mouth and then having a special Xray done to see if and where the contrast travels, thus ruling out or confirming a hole, depending on where it travels.

I'm starting to get a little nervous about how she's going to react to having to swish the contrast around in her mouth, I'm sure it tastes nasty.

Would you please be praying that 1) Rachel cooperates with taking the contrast and swishing about and that 2) the results would be negative for a fistula (no hole). Prayers would be very much appreciated! Thank You!!!

When we get the results, I'll be sure to share them.

A Dental CT Scan

When Rachel had her "special tooth" extracted a few weeks ago, our Pediatric dentist was telling me about a new CT machine that her husbands (he's a dentist too!) office had gotten, just that week. It's the latest and greatest in 3D Xray that allows you splice and move and plan out the dental care of patients for example with orthodontics and oral surgery.

A couple of days after our appointment, we received a call from our dentist informing us that if we brought Rachel in within the next two weeks, for them to practice on Rachel, they'd do the scans free of charge. We took advantage of that idea and worked out a time in which everyone was available. That appointment was this morning.

This new machine circles your head and scans it while you stand still. Rachel did perfect! She stood still and bit the stick as best as she could. Within 10-15 minutes, the scans started to download on the nearby computer. The scans were amazing! Mr. Doctor Hoffer sat and spliced through the scans and together with Rachel's dentist, they kinda sorted out what tooth was what. They were very appreciative of me allowing them to use Rachel as it was interesting to them to see all the adult teeth forming within her gums, not to mention the obvious of her issues of having been born with a cleft. He's going to take her scans and consult with a few orthodontists to see what they think and share the technology with them. But it was amazing to see.

It looks like Rachel has all her adult teeth! Her 12 year molars are already growing and she has many adult teeth starting to push their way up on to the baby teeth. You could also see the area where her bone graft was done. It was all very interesting, and I'm thankful for the opportunity for my kid to be used as a guinea pig! :) Click on the picture to enlarge.
They burned the images, as well as the software to a CD which I was able to bring home and have Steven load on to our computer and he could see the scans for himself. This will be helpful to have with Rachel's medical file that I keep.

The End of 1st Grade

It's been a busy few weeks, a busy few days. But the girls ended the 2010-2011 school year this afternoon.

Last night after bedtime prayers, Rachel started to cry. She was sad and expressed how much she was going to miss Mrs. Thompson, her wonderful 1st grade teacher. The tears resurfaced this morning before breakfast. Rachel again expressed how much she was going to miss her teacher and her friends.

She made it through the morning, packing up what was left of her belongings in her desk. Made the most adorable frog hats. Had a special time on the carpet where the teacher called each student up and asked what their favorite thing about 1st grade was and then she said something nice about each student and then presented them with a bag of Skittles. The note attached to the bag of Skittles said this:

"You've made it to the top of my chart and heart and now you're ready to Skittle Up to 2nd grade! Congratulations!"

Almost the entire school year, a behavior chart, called the Skittle Chart, has been in place. Depending on what color your clip landed on at the end of the day determined how many Skittles you got. However, due to nutritional rules set in place about a month ago, the reward of Skittles was tossed out the window. But the bag of Skittles and nice note accompanying it was a nice way to end the year.

The minimum day school bell rang and that symbolized the end of the day. Cheers and happy hollering could be heard throughout the school grounds. Rachel had made it through the day just fine, until Mrs. Thompson stood at the door, giving her 1st graders one last hug and goodbye. Once Rachel stepped away, she fell apart, sobbing. Thus resulted in the Mommy shedding some tears too.

Rachel has had a wonderful 1st grade school year. Despite having some really challenging classmates, that at times made learning difficult, she has had a great school year!

Her teacher was absolutely amazing! The challenges she faced on a daily basis were more than any one person should have to deal with, but she always handled the circumstances with such patience and calmness. However, I'm sure there was that underlying desire to want to beat the kid on more than one occasion. :) We tried to convince her move up to 2nd grade, but she's perfectly happy where she's at.

So today, we said goodbye to 1st grade, and thankful we've had such an amazing teacher, Mrs. Thompson!

Appointment with Dr Martin

It's hard to believe that next week will be 7 months since Rachel's bone graft and nose revision!

We had a follow up appointment with her plastic surgeon this afternoon. We had a letter from our Speech Therapist outlining some concerns she had in regards to Rachel's hyper-nasality in her speech from time to time and her concern for a possible fistula (hole) in the palate.

Dr. Martin checked out Rachel's nose and inside her mouth and while he didn't see anything, he went ahead and ordered a Fistulagram.

The procedure is a special XRAY whereas Rachel will need to swish contrast about in her mouth and then they'll Xray her facial bones to see if the contrast finds any holes in her palate and the contrast travels. This procedure is pretty accurate and this will give us an answer as to whether or not Rachel has a hole in her palate, or if she's just lazy in her speech. I'm pretty sure it's the latter. But it'll be nice to have a test to rule out the other.