Cleft Team half day assessment~ Sara

On Tuesday, Steph and I took Li Lin downtown to the children's hospital in our area for her 3yr check-up/first meeting with the cleft team.  She was scheduled for a  half day assessment which was four appointments spaced an hour apart with an hour's break for us to get lunch.  The night before the appointments I told Li Lin in mandarin that we were going to a kids' hospital so the doctor could look at her mouth, teeth, and ears.  She nodded and agreed to go after I gave her confirmation that no needles were going to be put into use.

On the way to the hospital, Li Lin told us she was scared.  We told her we would each hold her hands during the appointment and she smiled and said, "hao" (good).  Appointment #1, at 9am, was with the dentist.  She was pleased to say "no cavities", and although there is significant discolouration on the tooth closest to her fistula she felt it did not warrant any attention as it was causing Li Lin no discomfort.  As soon as she left her chair, the orthodontist gave her mouth a once-over.  He, as expected, had no immediate plans, but did tell us she will need lots of ortho work down the road.

Upon leaving the dental chair, with her chart in hand, we headed to the Speech Pathology department.  Li Lin was difficult to assess as her English is very poor still, and she was more interested in the toys than she was in the SLP (Speech Language Pathologist).  I have no doubts this SLP will remember our appointment for a long time.   Li Lin at one point, asked that we pray, and wouldn't proceed with the appointment until we did! LOL!  She was playing with imaginary food and wanted us to give thanks for it.  Thankfully, the SLP was a good sport and didn't mind.  She is impressed with how well Li Lin spoke given the size of her cleft fistula.  Fistulas (or holes which should not normally be there) usually cause more problems with speech if they are at the back of the mouth.  Li Lin's is at the front, but it is very big.  We will be referred to a local speech therapist in our area.

Our next appointment was with the audiologist.  Several hearing tests were performed in cool sound-proof rooms.  In the end we were told her hearing was normal.  We had already figured as much, but the confirmation was good.

We took our lunch break next, then headed to our 1pm appointment with the plastic surgeon.  We were anxious to find out when she would be having her surgery to repair her fistula.  We waited a mind-numbing ninety minutes before we were ushered into a room.  A couple minutes later the door opened and to our disappointment it was not the Dr.  It was the nurse coordinator coming to do MRSA swabs.  Since she came from another country this is protocol.  I won't go into details of MRSA swabbing, if you are a medical professional you can sympathize with me trying to explain this in broken Chinese to a three year old.  Another half hour later the plastics fellow showed up and chatted with us for 20 minutes or so.  At one point, the attending (her boss and mentor), showed up and needed her.  Another forty five minutes or more later, they came in again.  The news was not as expected.  They do not want to do any surgery until she is between the ages of seven to nine.  At that point they will do a bone graft with bone from her hip, to bring her gum lines together and make place for the teeth to come in.  They will fix the fistula then, while at the same time do a revision on her lip.
So my little girl will go to school with a large fistula in her mouth for at least four years...hmm.  Her nose job will not be done until she is 17 or 18 and is fully grown.  So there you have it.  We walked out of the appointment at 4:30pm with Li Lin asleep in my arms and very thankful we were only scheduled for the half day assessment.

A Week in Pictures at the cottage~Sara

 

This past week we enjoyed a relaxing vacation at one of our friends' cottage.  We had initially planned on going camping, but when the offer of the use of the cottage came up, we gladly accepted.  Here are some of the pictures taken during the week.

Hudson in awe as he is on horseback for the very first time.

Steph getting in touch with his Western roots

Chillin' at the beach

Rykauna having a patriotic moment..

Logan plotting who he should douse with water next..

Rykauna had fun taking pictures and capturing the essence of summer fun!

Fun times after jumping out of the paddle boat

Li Lin loved pouring buckets of cold water on her head

I'm having a bad  hair day here, but the effect in this pic is kind of cool (as is the guy!;)

Grandpapa enjoying the sunsets

I'm sharing the pic of Hudson with Sunday Snapshot.  If you are interested in reading about this click on the above button.

Family Fishing Day ~ Sara

Sunday Snapshot

Yesterday Logan noticed  an advertisement for Family Fishing Week.  Yup, no license needed for this week and our local provincial park was also offering free rod, bait, and tackle usage as well.  To top it off, kids were also entitled to a free hot dog and drink.  So we piled into the van and off we drove to the most urban provincial park I have ever been to.  It is laughably too close to civilization.  You can hear the hum of the nearby freeway as well as railway tracks that are about a stone's throw away. The beaches were littered with goose droppings and the washrooms sported a wildly nauseating aroma, but we didn't care, we were there to fish!  Unfortunately, these pictures were NOT a representation of what we saw. ( These shots were taken at Yu'Yuan gardens in Shanghai)  We saw nary a fish today; in fact except for a rumour I heard about one person catching a fish, I'm not sure if anyone lining the fishing zone caught anyting other than the occasional weed.  It was still lots of fun for the kids.  Well, some of the kids.  Rykauna had more fun taking pictures.  Here are some pics she took.

Rykauna is sashaying ~ Sara

Rykauna is a very determined twelve year old girl.  She sets goals then strives to achieve them.  A week ago she told me she has three main summertime goals:

1. Take her bronze medallion swim course:  she started that today
2.  Enter lots of Sunday Snapshot photo contests:  she hopes to get honourable mention at least once
3.  Open up an Etsy shop (with grandmaman's creative help):  started as of Saturday night

When she told me of her three goals all I could say was, "You go, girl!"  She even asked me to put up a post mentioning her business so she gets some hits on her site, LOL!!  Please do not feel any obligation to purchase, I think she would just be happy with a few hits on her webpage.  If you want to take a look, her shop is called, Rykauna's Ruffles.  She is selling handmade sashay scarves in a multitude of colours and sizes, including American girl sized scarves.  I guess this is the modern version of the lemonade stand? 

Here is the link if you are interested or just plain curious to see what she is doing.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/RykaunasRuffles?ref=search_shop_redirect

Li Lin's First Canada Day~ Sara

Photo creds to Rykauna and her new camera!

Last night we all got dressed up in our patriotic wear and drove to a nearby park.  It just wasn't any old random park... it was a park that was putting on a city sponsored fireworks displays  The little ones and the not so little ones all had a great time.  Happy Canada Day!

Mamas are monster police~ Sara

A couple of weeks ago,  Rykauna had a good friend over for supper.  P.Z. is a Canadian of Chinese descent and speaks fluent Chinese.  P.Z. told me something really special.

The three girls, Rykauna, P.Z. and Li Lin were in the basement.  Apparently Li Lin was scared that there might be monsters in the closet.  Then she went on the offensive poised to attack if necessary and said, in mandarin, "I'm not scared, I've got my mom."

How cool is that?  She was convinced I would rescue her if necessary! It is great to see her deepening her trust in us each day.