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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Tubes - they're coming...

February 29th the tubes go in. I don't know the time yet.

Jacob had his appointment with the ENT today. The ENT said the fluid would never go away on it's own and will continue to build into adolesense. This likely won't be his only set of tubes either as the cause is genetic - which we weren't quite prepared for...

Jacob has a submucous cleft palate with a bifid uvula. The cleft palate isn't serious, Jacob will always have it and there isn't anything they can do to correct it. He will always have a small speech impediment - with the letters, s,t, and k , maybe more. The ENT did say that the cleft would cause complications if Jacob needed to have tonsils or adnoids removed. He said if they weren't removed correctly, it would likely create a cleft palate that would need to be repaired.

This link has pictures showing the differences in degree of cleft palate. The top picture would be an example of Jacob's case.

I can't find a picture of the bifid uvula that I can post here. If you do a search, Yahoo! or Google...you can find pictures. Now, I don't know if those pictures are what Jacob's looks like, I haven't seen his.

According to what I have read on the subject, it's not typically detected until the toddler years when a speech delay occurs. It is genetic. Amber carries it. Her daughter Hannah, had surgery to repair her cleft last fall. Hannah and Jacob have different fathers. As I said earlier, it's not serious - just something he'll always have. We're just thankful that's all it is.

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