Megan update: 8 months

We visited with Megan's doctors at Riley Hospital on Monday. Here's the report (if you want to read all the details, keep reading, otherwise scroll to the bottom for a quick summary):

Plastic surgeon:
Megan looks good, he is pleased with her progress. It may take some time for her scar to lighten up, but that is normal (considering the complexion of our family). She is on track to have her soft palate surgery this summer, possibly June. Since the hole in her palate is quite wide it may take 2 and possibly 3 surgeries to close it up. They use tissue from her existing palate to replace what is missing. Once it heals up, they will do it again, probably 6 months later or so.

Oral surgeon:
He checked the gap in her hard palate (her gumline) and said it had closed up enough to do the primary bone graft. We were quite surprised by this and were sure she would not be ready! This surgery actually happens before the soft palate surgery mentioned above. It will most likely take place in March or April (soon!). They will take a small piece of bone from her rib and graft it into her gumline. If she were not ready for this surgery yet, she would have had to wait for a "secondary" bone graft that is taken from the hip instead. They don't do that until age 7-8 years. So although surgery is never fun, it is actually great news that she can get it done now instead of waiting 7 years for it.

Audiology:
Next Megan had her ears tested. She had a newborn hearing screen when she was born (which she passed) but had not had her ears tested at Riley yet. They used a special machine that blew air into Megans ears (let me tell you how much she loved that!) to test the pressure on her ear drums. Or something like that....I will do my best to explain this stuff but don't always understand everything myself! Megan's eardrums didn't respond the way they were supposed to, which means they probably had fluid in them (I'll tell you more about this in a minute). Next was a hearing test. Megan and I sat in the middle of a small room and the audiologist in another room where she talked into a microphone. There were speakers on both sides of the room. Out of one speaker we hear "Hi Megan--I'm over here!" and Megan turned her head toward the speaker. Then a black box above the speaker lit up with a small stuffed animal moving inside. This process continued, along with other different sounds. When the test was over, we learned that Megan can hear us talking at normal levels (we don't have to raise our voice for her to hear us) but couldn't hear the quieter sounds as well. They had to raise the level to above normal range for her to respond. The audiologist suggested that this was because of the fluid in her ears, and when that was taken care of she would hear much better. Right now it probably sounds like we are underwater or something. She made an appointment for us to see ENT.

ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat):
This doctor checked Megan's ears and found that there was something keeping her pressure abnormal but couldn't see any fluid. That doesn't mean there isn't any. She may have fluid under her ear drums or just air, but either way it was decided that she will have tubes put in her ears when she has her next surgery. Because of her cleft, she does not have the same pressure in her ears as we do. When our ears get plugged up, we can yawn and "pop" them, but she is not able to do that. Don't ask me how all of this works, I just know hers is a little different than normal and they are putting tubes in her ears to help her out.

Dentist:
Megan's obturator has been falling out about once a day lately, even with fixodent, so this was our biggest concern for the dentist. She checked the obturator and found that it is a little loose but still fits the shape of her mouth, so we will be ok to wait until her next surgery before getting a new one made. When we got home this morning, I noticed that her obturator was NOT in her mouth and I didn't know where it was! I later found it in her carseat. I guess I better start inspecting her mouth more often now!

After a long morning of appointments (the kids were getting a bit tired of the in-and-out of the waiting room but did really good) we felt good about all the progress Megan has made and all that we learned from the doctors. Here is the summary (for those who didn't want to read through all of this!):

SUMMARY:
Megan is doing well. This March or April Megan will be having surgery to repair her hard palate, having tubes put in her ears, and a new obturator made. In the summer she will have her first surgery to repair her soft palate, which will probably take at least two surgeries to complete.