kerri...

[krista]

hi kerri,

my name is krista. our daughter malissa was born with a bilateral cleft lip and cleft palate. she is now 3 yo. she was born at the u or iowa. and also sees dr canady. i have never really got to talk with other people who go to that cleft team. i think they are all great. love having deb for a nurse. anyhow, i just wanted to say hi and give you my email addy.
jkburkett@mchsi.com we are in grinnell. if you would email me sometime. i would love to talk with you.

krista

[Kerri]

Aren't they wonderful!!! We LOVE going there..Her next surgery is Aug. 29th..Little nervous but very anxious about that one..He couldn't believe how much her gumline and palate have grown together since her surgery a few months ago..You're the first one I've run across on here from Iowa..( 1st one from cleftadvocate.org as well!) Deb is so great, too..It helps so much that she has children with clefts as well..Iowa City is such a great place to go to...I'm glad we're only an hour and a half away!

[krista]

Kerri,

I do agree, they are great. They helped us alot. My husband, Jeff, is in the Army and was in Korea while i was pg and was home on leave when she was born. We already knew she would be born with the cleft..just didn't know how severe it would be. We got to meet Dr Canady and his team the day we found out. Malissa..aka Missa...was born a week later. They helped us get Jeff home from Korea for a week when Missa had her first surgery at 6 months by writing letters to Jeff's commander. When Jeff finally got home from Korea Missa was 10 months old and we moved back to
Fort Campbell, KY. So Missa had her palate surgery done at Vanderbilt university in Nashville tn. Her Dr there was Dr Cofer. She was great as well. She works alot with Children's Surgery International. We are now back in Iowa while Jeff is on recruiting duty. we will be here for 3 years. I was so glad that we got to come back to Iowa. Very happy that Missa would be seeing Dr Canady again. Missa has done very well with her surgeries, speech therapy, feeding therapy and all. I hope that things go as well for your daughter. We are only an hour away from Iowa City. We are living in Grinnell which is Jeff's hometown. I have been thinking of talking with Dr Canady to see if some of his other patients would like to meet up some time. Talk about things, give each other advice etc....
Well i need to run for now. tc and hope to hear from you again soon.
Krista

mom to Missa born 4-4-03 with bilateral cleft lip and palate (both repaired)

[Kerri]

We went about a month ago to talk about her palate repair..Deb and Jamie (the genetic coun.) saw us talking to a pregnant couple and asked if it helped to talk to others..Jamie talked to us a bit about getting something set up with the parents (emails or phone numbers) so the parents interested in meeting or just keeping in contact would be able to..I told her that doing Ella's story for cleftline.org really helped me out as well..So HOPEFULLY we'll get something going..We dont have to go back until pretests on Aug 28th and her surgery on the 29th so I'm pretty happy..It's nice to finally talk to someone else that uses their team!