It has been so long since I updated this blog! Maddy's surgery went fantastically well. I had heard and read that the first two weeks would be hard, but Maddy seemed as though she was back to "normal" within a couple of days. She would still get frustrated by the arm splints, and by her inability to eat regular food - also once she came home, she asked for her dummy more, probably because it was part of the whole bedtime routine. In the past month since surgery though, she's adjusted well. She no longer needs the splints and can eat almost anything (although we have to keep really hard, "pointy" things out of her mouth still). She has also stopped asking for her dummy.
I do think that in the last month, there has been some improvements in Maddy's speech. She seems to be saying a lot more now - however it's still not very clear and few people besides those of us who know her best can understand her. Some words, she can say perfectly (eg, Daddy, Yeah, No, Hi, Bye...) but most are a bit of a stretch (eg bubble is "guggle", yoghurt is "ger", bath is "ba" or "ga", and so on...)
Since Maddy is now getting close to two, I think it is time to put her into speech therapy. This will be her first private therapy - everything else so far, we have had through the public system. I would have done speech through the public system as well, except since we are on the waiting list for therapy at the early intervention centre place, we are apparently ineligible to do anything more than to just wait (I don't understand why we are eligible for public physio and OT in that time but not speech, but ah well).
I've been looking around a bit and some places are really expensive. One place wanted to come to my house and they would charge me $500HKD (around $65USD/AUD) for 30 minutes travel round trip, another place will do an assessment for $5000 (around $650). These places are "expat places" where the therapists are all Westerners, as are many of the clients. I decided to look around for something that was a bit more in our budget. I finally found this one place and the therapist spent 20 minutes talking to me on the phone yesterday (and didn't charge me ridiculously for that!) so we're going to try there. She will have her assessment on Saturday.
Maddy's speech is something that I have been concerned about for a long time and hopefully we will see even greater improvements soon :)
good luck. Perhaps you could put an appeal out through the expat network and find someone who doesn't want to work formally but is qualified and has a good heart? I met someone like that at a conference a while back but have completely forgotten her name ...
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