Stretching Clara's Palate

Right now we are in the process of stretching Clara's palate, getting her ready to get braces. While she swears it isn't in any way uncomfortable, I can't stand to do it. Unfortunately, if it isn't done, she doesn't get braces and her top teeth never get put in place. So I push through it and do it anyway. She has to have a total of 28 turns, one each day for a month. We've missed 3 turns so far. So that's 3 extra days of turns.

She had a device in already to stretch her palate, but for some reason it didn't stretch it as much as they wanted it to, so she is now on her second device. This one is supposed to do what the last one couldn't.

(This is the device. In the middle is where the key goes to turn it. If you look at the front of her palate, you can see the fistula that is still there. It causes food to get in her nose, come out of her nose, and get stuck on the top side of her palate. It causes all kinds of problems.)

She's excited about getting the ball rolling to getting braces. She very much just wants her top teeth set in place. She wants to be able to bite into food "normally", but I don't know if she'll be able to even after her teeth are fixed. Not at first anyway. The middle portion of her palate that holds the top front teeth, is not stable at all. It is the piece that was only attached at one point at birth. It still wiggles a bit, so I'm seeing that as another possible surgery in the future. :(
I guess we'll find out in March when she has her Clinic appointment with her Craniofacial Team at Scottish Rite in Atlanta.

But for now, she's miserable and counting the days to getting this device out and until her braces are off. While she is excited about getting the braces because of what she knows they will do for her, she isn't happy about not being able to chew gum, eat taffy, or about having to give up Twizzlers. She's ready to get her favorite candies back. :P

(Originally written on Clara's blog on 02-07-2016)