First of all, on the family front, Son had his day at the Cleft Palate clinic. He showed me the cute teddy bear they gave him as a prize for being so good as he did the rounds of speech therapist, audiologist, orno-naso-rhinologist (or whatever an ear-nose-throat guy is called), plastic surgeon, orthodontist, videographer, and so on. I had to leave before he received the bear, for a reason I will mention in a moment.
Anyway....Son came through with a clean bill of health from pretty much everyone. The plastic surgeon confirmed he does, in fact, have a submucous cleft, which they tried very hard to record on video, as he was so cooperative with demonstrating the tenting at the roof of his mouth. He is on the list for surgery sometime in the summer. He has been working so hard on his talking that the improvement is staggering, but he is compensating for the letter sounds that he cannot make normally due to the cleft, and the surgeon says it will make his life so much easier to go ahead with the surgery so he won't have to be constantly fighting with his own mouth and throat to make sounds the rest of us do unconsciously. We are extremely happy to sign the papers for the surgery....we've waited nearly 4 years for this, through doctors who missed it through sloppy, lazy practices when specifically asked to check for this, specialists who would rather have him come back again and again than actually treat the problem, and of course, waiting lists once we finally found a way into the system to get him treated.
On top of this, he recently got glasses. Poor guy was going blind at the end of each day. He kept telling us at supper that he couldn't see. Little did we realize how true it was! He has to wear his glasses all the time, which is a big adjustment for a 3 1/2 year old. He is extremely far sighted with one eye much weaker than the other. His eyes were working so hard to see and to compensate for the weakness that by the end of the day they were so strained and tired that they essentially were quitting on him and he was going practically blind in the evenings. He is at half strength now because the full prescription would be too much of a shock all at once. So he has these ones for 6 months, then they will reevaluate his sight and likely bump it up to full power. He;s really cute in glasses....here's a picture....he looks miserable because it took 6 tries to get the shot and he was tired of posing.
I have no idea how to flip it if it is sideways, so tilt your head. :)
Also in his little life, the second of his tubes finally came out of his ears, so in about a week, he should be able to take swimming lessons for the first time ever.
Now in other news, the reason I had to leave the cleft palate clinic early was that I had to catch a plane. Originally, I wasn't going to be at the clinic at all....I was booked on a flight to Vancouver on Thursday at 9:50AM. I arrived, checked in with 11 of my chorus mates, and we sat and waited for our plane that we were told was delayed by 30 minutes. About 30 minutes before we were scheduled to leave, we found out our flight was, in fact, cancelled. So we went hunting for our checked luggage and returned to the counter to get another flight. We were then booked on a flight Thursday at 1:50PM. Again, delayed 30 minutes, then cancelled 3 minutes before supposed takeoff. Snowstorm in Calgary, apparently. Again we get our checked luggage and back in line. New tickets? FRIDAY at 1:50PM! So I phoned Husband and got a ride home until the next day. I was NOT happy, especially since other chorus members who only SHOWED UP mid-afternoon Thursday got flights leaving that evening or early the next morning, getting their flights AFTER we got ours. Because we left for Vancouver 28 hours later than scheduled, we missed a LOT of the weekend...I missed hanging out with a friend for Thursday afternoon and evening (we did get together for a food court supper on Friday), I missed First Nite and a chance to shop, I missed the Mass Sing and the education class, and by the time I got there, I was just too tired and stressed to go watch the Quartet competition. Saturday was a blur....up, breakfast, mental prep, run-thru, makeup and costumes on, compete, eat pizza, change costumes, do the Show of Champions, change, check out Afterglow, crash into bed. Up Sunday morning and onto the plane to meet with Husband, Son, and Daughter to go see the Wiggles, then a 3 hour drive home.
We came in First Place Small Chorus and Fifth Place Overall (out of 18)....but our chorus is falling apart, drastically. There may not be a chorus by this time next year because so many people are leaving and a lot of the people still here are a part of the problem....if you have ever read the blurb on Somebody, Everybody, Anybody, and Nobody, then you will know what I mean when I say that this is our chorus. I am so desperate that I am essentially changing who I am, and instead of being the meek, quiet observer, I am claws out ready to fight mad, and enough so to try to run for president of the chorus. My chances are slim, but if it happens, I would have the means to DO something to turn this thing around....and if I don't get to be President, you'd better believe I'm going to be the squeaky wheel. People are going to hear some truths they don't want to hear, and they are going to find that just agreeing with me isn't enough.....they are going to have to get up off their butts and show that they really care about this chorus. Growf!
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