Hannah's medical update

We've had a crash of doctor's appointments for Hannah lately, so I just thought I'd give you guys a quick update on how she's doing. Feel free to speed read or just skim through, as I'm probably giving more information that you ever wanted about our daughter's health!

In other news right quick, our house is under contract and is expected to close on the 21st of September. We're waiting for the appraisal right now and if that goes well then we should be good. We'd appreciate prayers for the last details of this. God has worked in miraculous ways to provide offers for the house that drove the price back up to where we could pay off the mortgage and pay the closing costs, etc. without going broke! His provision has been amazing in ways that are obvious to both us and our real estate agent.

Hannah has begun twice a week speech therapy with a private speech therapist. This therapist's office came highly recommended and we have been thrilled with the care she's getting there. They did a throrough assessment and found that her receptive abilities (her ability to understand what we're saying to her) were just about normal, but that she has severe delays in expressive communication. She has only about two words that she uses, but is starting to sign quite a bit and that's helping out. The therapist is looking into different issues that Hannah has with her mouth, palate, lips, swallowing mechanism, etc.

She saw a developmental pediatritian the other day. Michael and I spent about two hours with this doctor. He said her cognitive development was delayed, but not severe, and the fact that she's already potty trained, helps dress herself, feeds herself, etc. was a great sign for her future prognosis. We're committed to working with her to help her gain her full God-given potential. This doctor is also on the spina bifida team. She had an MRI done last week which showed that she does have spina bifida occulta (a mild form). She has a meningocele, a fluid-filled sac, at the base of her spine, which shouldn't be at all problematic. Two different radiologists looked at the MRI and disagreed over whether or not she had spinal tethering (where the spinal cord is tethered to the bone). The pediatric radiologist at the army hospital thought there was. Anyhow, time will tell whether or not she does have this issue. If she does, there will be need to do a surgery to un-tether the spinal cord so that she can grow and function without pain. We'll be seeing the entire spina bifida team, hopefully in October, which consists of a neurologist, an orthopedist, a urologist (this is often a problem for these kiddos), etc.

OK, next. She saw the plastic surgeon who is the head of the cleft palate team. She'll see the entire team (Ear Nose Throat doctor, geneticist, plastic surgery, audiology, and someone else I can't remember) at the beginning of November. They're interested in her seeing the geneticist because of the multitude of mid-line disorders she seems to be blessed with--might help them know what to be looking out for and will help her as she gets older and thinks about starting her own family someday. The plastic surgeon is desiring to close up the hole that's still in her palate and possibly start working on her nose in the not so distant future. While he's in there, the audiologist should be able to get in the hearing test we're needing.

So, that's all I can think of right now. Every doctor she's seen has been amazed at her beautiful, smiling personality. She loves to go to the doctor and have everyone focused on her. They all talk about her great disposition. We consider it God's great blessing that she's this way. I have to say I've been struck with how blessed we all are in our health, particularly. Every time we go to see a specialist, we hear stories about kids who have severe disabilities and diseases. We'll accept whatever He gives us, of course, but for the time being, we're so thankful for good health and only minor things to take care of.