Flying In, Driving Out

I am waiting for Shawn and Clare to return home from their trip to Louisville, Kentucky to see Dr. Mervis. Being that they have a layover in Philadelphia, their flight (of course) is delayed, so I am still waiting for their arrival at home! (No insult to my peeps in Philly, but the airport stinks.)

Dr. Mervis was kind enough to let me conference call in on her chat with Shawn this morning, so I got to hear firsthand the scoop on Clare. Overall, she is doing well and actually scored in the average range as compared to typical children in her verbal and nonverbal reasoning skills (which means she scored quite well as compared to other children with Williams syndrome). When it comes to her spatial skills, however, not so good. Which we expected, knowing Clare as we do. She also is having more trouble than is typical for kids with WS with some language skills. The fact that she is having trouble comes as no surprise since we, her private speech therapist, and her team at school have all noticed that there are some challenges when it comes to language development with Clare. However, it was a surprise to us that this is NOT typical in WS and that Clare is behind in these skills when compared to other children with WS. Definitely something to work on, keep an eye on, and be sure the school knows that it cannot be blown off "just because she has WS." (Not that the school is overlooking it right now, just something to keep in mind when discussing Clare's progress at our next team meeting.) The actual term for Clare's problem is "specific language impairment." Unfortunately, she is about a year too young to administer the actual test for this impairment, but it is certainly something we can work on over the next year and have Clare tested when she visits Dr. Mervis again next February. In the meantime, Dr. Mervis provided some recommendations for what Clare should be working on at home and in school and emphasized that Clare should definitely repeat kindergarten. All in all, I think the visit with Dr. Mervis was successful, but I know I am going to have two very tired people arriving home (hopefully any minute).

We leave at 5:30am tomorrow morning to bring Clare to Children's Hospital Boston for her dental surgery. If all goes as planned, Clare is going to have a tooth extraction, some fillings, x-rays, and a cleaning (what else can they squeeze in dental-wise while she's under anesthesia??). So she will be good to go for another six months. Then Clare and Shawn will stay overnight on the cardiac floor so they can keep an eye out as she recovers from anesthesia. Her surgery is scheduled for 8:30am, so prayers are appreciated!