Medical Update on Xin

Over the past week we have had several medical appointments for Xin. He had his first "well" check-up and I am happy to report he is pretty ...well. He is in the 5% for height and 25% for weight. A rather small little dude but probably not for Asian standards. These are the American charts. He still had fluid in his ears and so he was on a second round of antibiotics. I see tubes in his future. His lead and iron were normal-yeah! I guess he didn't do a lot of chewing on toys when he was little! The pediatrician confirmed there was still a "sound"-not a hole in your heart sound but a sound in his heartbeat, so she referred us to a pediatric cardiologist. Not to worry she said, so I will go with that advice for now, or at least try to! After receiving 5 shots in GZ the poor guy still needs 4 more to get caught up-ugh!!!!!! We are doing that when Jaida has her 4 yr old check-up in Oct. Won't that be fun to have TWO 4yr olds getting shots?!?!?!

We also saw the cleft doctor, for lack of a better title. He is Chinese and one of the best in the country so we are glad to have him close by. He feels Xin will need a surgery we weren't planning on here in the near future. He is lacking the capability to close the air off from his nose when he speaks so he talks very "nasally"-again lack of a better word. This surgery would reattach his muscle to give him that capability and provide better quality of speech. He referred us to speech therapist for further testing. I asked on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst case-where was Xin? He said a 3-we will take a 3!

Enter speech therapist and testing done yesterday. Well, he did not fair so well but I didn't expect him to-he doesn't know the English language yet nor is he familiar with American items-toys, scenes, tools, etc. It would be like placing an American child in China after being there 3 weeks and showing them and asking them questions concerning the items. So he pretty much failed the comprehension part and did not fair so well on the articulation part either. She did a test where it registered the amount of air coming out of his nose when he said words starting with B's-things we say with our mouths and .....oh boy......the little ball in the tube shot to the top and bounced off-not good-lot-o-air through the ole nose. So she confirmed the Dr's diagnosis of needing a surgery. She said she really did not want to start therapy until the surgery was complete because it would be useless without the capability. Think tennis lesson with a broken arm. The good thing was I learned what we need to work on as far as the English language, for example, pronouns, opposites, ing endings, shapes, colors......and so on! He really is catching on though, he might not be able to point to the color red but if I show him something red and ask him to show me another red he does. All in time!

So, we will go to the ENT and the cardiologist in a few weeks. I am thinking tubes will be needed but that can be done the same time as the palate surgery. Hoping and praying there will be no need for additional heart surgery. If you have extra prayers in you, we could use some for no further heart surgery. Thank you, thank you!

All in all, not too bad. Xin continues to learn and grow and blend into his new family. We are very thankful for the good care and attention Xin received while living in the Beijing Children's Welfare Institute. A HUGE answered prayer!!!! We will be forever grateful to the wonderful people who worked there during our son's first 4 years.