2012 - 2013 School Pictures & Ashlyn's Medical Stuff

Got to pick up Kaylyn & Ashlyn's school pictures on DVD today since they were suppose to be free if you order over a certain amount.  They forgot to include it in the girls' school pictures, so we called them and they made them available for us to pick up.  So, here is Kaylyn's 5th grade picture and Ashlyn's 3rd grade picture for their 2012 - 2013 School year!

Two things going on with Ashlyn:

First thing is that we were suspecting that Ashlyn's submucous cleft palate was causing her to have VPI pretty bad. So, last Friday, October 5th, we took Ashlyn to the Arnold Cleft Palate team to have a VPI study done where they stuck a camera down her nose to the back of her throat to see the roof of the mouth try to touch the back of throat while talking.  She had pretty good closure, but you could see bubbles coming up through (which explains the gurgling noises we always hear when she speaks certain sounds).  It lasted about 5 minutes and she did very well.  There were about 10 doctors standing around watching and they showed her the video when it was done.  They could see the submucous cleft very well from back there and luckily there was no paralization like the oral maxillfacial surgeon originally suspected.  Based on the results though, surgery was not suggested for the VPI, but possible to fix her inner ear function.  Can't be guaranteed that it will help though and they'd have to put a tube in the ear drum that's already been reconstructed twice to help with the healing process of fixing the palate.  Not sure it is worth it!

On another note, yesterday I took Ashlyn to get an MRI.  Her FSH levels are too high for her age, her bone age is 2 years older than she is, and she has already developed to stage 3 breast tissue.  So she has precocious puberty and before she starts her cycle, which the doctor said could be in the next 6 months, we've decided to slow the process by getting her Supprelin LA implant to suppress the pituitary gland from going further into puberty.  They are speculating that us feeding a malnourished child almost three years ago kick started this process.  If we don't suppress it now, she will be done growing soon as her bone x-rays indicated (only 55 inches now).  The MRI was to make sure that nothing else is causing her pituitary gland to go into early puberty.  We are still waiting for the approval of the implant by insurance and then getting it to the doctor so he can inject it.  It's pretty painless (hardest thing will be the numbing shot).  It stays in for about 1 year and then they remove it and re-evaluate.  So, hopefully this works and she can at least grow to 5 feet tall and gain some maturity before starting her cycle :-)