Walter Reed

Today we met with the cleft team at Walter Reed. It was an all-day affair, but we left pretty impressed with the caregivers there. We started bright and early with a consult with the head of Plastic Surgery who will repair Michelle's cleft. We then rotated through Audiology, Speech Therapy, Ear Nose & Throat, the Social Workers, and the Oral Surgeon. After lunch we sat down in a conference room with all the specialists that we had met with during the morning. The team had compared notes and made sure that they were all on the same game plan for Michelle's long-term care.

The first big event will be a surgery on February 19th to repair the cleft palate. They will also put tubes in her ears. The tubes are necessary to help alleviate fluid build up behind her eardrums. Cleft kids often have issues with their eustation tubes which can lead to excess fluid and frequent ear infections.

Hearing testing on two year olds is difficult, but our audiologist is pretty sure that Michelle has some hearing loss. Some of that is probably due to the fluid behind the ear drum and impacted ear wax (yuk!) in front of the drum. Both of those will be cleared up when they put in the ear tubes. We are very hopeful that her hearing will improve significantly after the ear tube procedure.

After her surgery Michelle will have to be on a liquid/soft food diet for a few weeks. That will be tough because Michelle loves to eat with the rest of the family and we haven't yet found a food she doesn't like. We may have to invest in a good blender.

There are more surgeries and procedures in Michelle's future, but not for a few years. She will need an orthodontic device installed to expand her palate when she is about six. She will also need a bit of bone grafted into her top gum line when she is around seven. We may even elect to have some cosmetic surgery on her lip and nose at some point, but we are still thankful for the great lip repair that the Smile Train charity did in China while she was an infant.

It was a long day, but we left the hospital very impressed with the Cleft team.