Cora Graduated Speech Therapy!!!!!!

Last Wednesday I was in for a major surprise as I took Cora to her usual speech and occupational therapies for the morning. Her speech therapist said Cora has met all of her goals and discussed options with her other therapists about discontinuing speech. They all concluded that Cora has made great strides, met all speech goals, and her reading therapist could work further with her if the need arose.

 CORA GRADUATED SPEECH THERAPY AFTER 9 YEARS AND 3 MONTHS!!!!!!!

I was shocked and truly never thought I would see the day. I'm so incredibly proud of her hard work from her ENTIRE LIFE!!! She's been in speech since infancy. Her first speech therapist was Jan from the Guild School, and I will always credit her with helping to save Cora's life. Jan was the one who backed me up knowing something was seriously wrong with Cora's digestive system and helped me get a referral to a Gastroenterologist Specialist. Because of that appointment Cora received the life-saving surgeries needed on three different areas of her stomach. Jan's chemistry background also helped me get the consistency of Cora's liquids *just right* when she was aspirating all the time and was the one who got me into the hospital for countless swallow studies and came with me to each one. She helped me get the hang of different techniques to start feeding Cora solids and to strengthen her tongue musculature. Jan was incredible! We've had many other speech therapists through the years and all of them have been so good to us. How thankful I am!

Cora darling. I'm so, SOOOOO proud of you and your fighting spirit. There aren't words to say how grateful and proud I am, only feelings. To celebrate her accomplishment, Cora chose to go bowling. But the bowling alley had a 45 minute wait time so Cora's second choice was mini golf. The indoor mini golf was closed for renovations so we golfed outside in the freezing wind without proper coats. Her treat of choice was a slushie but the slushie machine was down so we went to a gas station where their slushie machine was also down. She settled for a gigantic XXL fountain soda since that was the only cup size available. It was an interesting day celebrating her achievement that certainly didn't go as planned but we rolled with the punches and made the best of it.