Holy hell! What a day! Let’s see,… we left for the cleft clinic at 0630, after having drugged the Ty-man with the doctor-recommended Benedryl, an attempt at not having a puke fest the entire way! It was successful, as he was asleep about 20 minutes into the 2-hour drive!! I think he finally woke up about ½ hour into the experience. There was construction on Route 81 at various points throughout the trip, which made it a whole lot of not fun at all! The real kicker was when we got into the city and couldn’t get off on the exit we needed to, instead getting off one too early. That was delightful, since there was all kinds of construction going on the city streets as well. I finally stopped being a man and stopped for directions and it turned out that my sense of direction had not failed me and I was only 3 short blocks from the road I needed. By the time we parked in the parking garage, I thought my bladder was going to explode after all the coffee I inhaled!! Down 3 flights of stairs we went, to street level, where I pulled out my packet of info that the clinic had sent me. We crossed the street to the building, only to discover that the form letter had been misprinted and we were in the wrong building. Delightful. We found a very sweet resident, who also happened to be very easy on the eyes, who directed us into the right direction, which also led us right past a much needed bathroom. BLAH! They had the meet and greet set up as a bit of a round robin deal so that we could meet the different doctors and clinicians on the cleft team. Mind you, we went through all of this before with the team in Virginia, but I did learn a couple of things. One was that new research has shown that I have a less than 5% chance of ever having another cleft child which has been my biggest reason for not actively seeking another. The second is that he himself has less than 5% chance of having a child with it. Those percentages are significantly lower than they were just 6 years ago. The other is that the team here does the steps of treatment a little differently, preferring not to do the reconstructive work on the nose, unless there are severe self-esteem issues (which we don’t have), until they are in their mid teens. Apparently, that allows for better cartilage growth and makes the surgery more successful. He does have to go to a pediatric orthodontist and we will begin the braces process and the spacers needed for his eventual bone grafts in his gum and palate. Good times!
And if all that wasn’t enough for one day,… we got to the parking garage and COULD NOT FIND OUR TRUCK! Apparently there are 3 Level 3’s and I wandered around with my Ty for almost 20 minutes trying to find the damn thing. I managed to walk in circles and miss the right Level 3 every time! I felt like the dumb blonde that I looked like!!!!
Leave a Reply