goodbye 2013

We squeezed in our very last specialist appointment on Dec 31st.  That makes for a grand total of 8 surgeries/medical procedures and too many doctor visits to count.  Hit our max out of pocket months ago so our insurance company must hate us.  I often felt like running the kids to appointments consumed the hours equivalent to a part time job each week.  Good thing my other job is a part time job.  I've probably said it before, but I have a new found appreciation for families with kids who have serious and chronic medical conditions. What we are doing is just a walk in the park compared to that.  Ethan's last procedure of the year was a nasal endoscopy to check the functioning of his palate.  The doc wanted to wait on this one, but too bad for Ethan that he has a speech therapist mom.  I didn't want to wait 6 months to find out that he didn't even know what a functioning palate felt like.  And I knew the chances of getting any decent data was 50/50 so we might as well try it while it was still "free."  It was nice talking shop with the lovely SLP who performed the scope.  Ethan had to sit perfectly still while a tube the size of a spaghetti noodle was threaded up his nose and down the back of his throat.  And not cry. And say "buy baby a bib" about a million times.  It went as horribly as you'd expect but we did get the pictures we needed and he is getting "fair" closure of his palate.  Not great, but ok.  Which means no palate revision in the spring...yay!  In fact, God willing, there are no surgeries on tap at all for 2014.  Possibly not even any specialists visits.  Now that would be something!