More medical stuff.

Doctor stuff is about all we've had going on this week. Besides trying to clean the house...

William decided to slide down the slide really fast, on the edge, last night. He came back in screaming about an owie, wouldn't put his arm down or anything. We took him into the local urgent care center where they x-rayed his collarbone. Sure enough, broken! Just a green stick fracture, but he'll be in a sling for a while. We take him back in a week to possibly have another x-ray done, make sure it's healing well.

Then today Nathan had an appointment with an ENT. He's been a lot more nasally lately, and almost gurgly in his speech. So we went to get him checked out. The first surgery he had, a couple years back, was to do a valve reconstruction on the valve between his nose and throat. 6 months later the doctor went back in to rotate the muscles above his pallate, only to discover that the valve had slipped down. So she fixed it, with strict instructions for us to bring him back in if we noticed him getting nasally again.

The new ENT did a fiberoptic scope, and we discovered that the valve isn't closing all the way. In fact, there is a lot of saliva hanging around it, and when air gets forced through it partially closed it makes lots of bubbles. Which explains the gurgly sound he's been having. So it's back to more speech therapy for Nathan! We're trying to get him in with a therapist who had cleft palate and valve flap work done herself.... since if anyone would be able to know how to best help him, she'd be it. Hopefully 3-6 months of therapy will show some improvement in those valve muscles, because if they don't, he's in for another surgery. :-(

And out of the blue, the doctor asked if he could take a look at Daniel as well. Danny-boy was born with these adorable dimples in his lips that nobody could explain except that his Daddy was born with them too. Turns out, they are a manifestation of Van Der Woude Syndrome, which also corresponds with cleft palatte/cleft lip! So he checked out the inside of Daniel's mouth and listened to him talk. Looks like the dimpled lips are the only thing he's got, but it was very interesting. And it really reassured me that this doctor knows what he is doing, unlike the first ENT we worked with for Nathan before we found the lady that did his surgery.

Reading more on the symptoms of the syndrome, it looks like Nathan has the same, as does Mark, theirs are just presenting differently. Interesting!