Friday, May 13, 2011

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

With two intense doctor's appointments back to back you would think when Mommy announced it was time to go to Speech Therapy today I would go running for the hills.  But Courtney is my therapist and I adore her and it has been almost 4 months since I last saw her so I didn't mind one bit.  Courtney has followed me on my blog so she had some inkling of how I would look post-distraction.  Mommy gave her a few additional updates and then we got to work.

Prior to the distraction Courtney had told Mommy that we would start focusing more heavily on my mouth placement when I speak after the distraction.  So today she ran through the basic sounds and helped me remember where to put my tongue for sounds like "d" and "t".  Although my "princess spot" for my tongue placement has always been behind my front tooth - now my tongue works a lot differently then it did before so it's time to start training it to do it right now.

Courtney explained that she has worked with the surgeons at Primary Children's and before I would undergo a palate surgery I would first have to pass a test to show that even before the surgery my mouth placement for making the sounds is correct.  The reasoning is that if I can't succeed with making the correct placement before the surgery than the outcomes won't be as good and it could end up being an unnecessary surgery.  So we have a few months to make sure my placement is correct ahead of getting tested.

Because of my distraction, Courtney was finally able to get a good look in my mouth.  She saw what she calls "cobbling" (also referred to as pharyngeal cobblestoning) which can indicate some type of irritation - very possibly reflux.  Now Mommy has wanted a bronchoscopy to check out my airway for a long time but since we haven't really been any where close to a potential decannulation it hasn't been necessary.  With the cobbling and the very real possibility of reflux Mommy plans on discussing with the craniofacial panel in July about getting one scheduled soon to figure out what is really going on.

Peyton Nicole Smith

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