Hi! Maria, my name is Olga. Im 24 years old. I live in
chicago. I got my hole inside my mouth when i waz 8 yrs. Da doctorz had 2 remove
my front teethz. I haven't had any other operation since then. I still need work
done but i can't do them cause im trying 2 get pregnant. Im married 4 almost 4
yrs. I do have a little speech problem. Dat only me an a doctor know about. He
has a clinic 4 cleft palate.

[ninamyers123@...] wrote:
Hi,

My name's Maria, I'm 22, and have recently had an operation to close
the fistula in the roof of my mouth (was born with unilateral - that
means one side yeah?? - cleft lip and palate). I've only had about 5
surgeries and my last one before this was when I was about 10 I
think - this one was my choice.

The reason I went for this surgery is because the hole in the roof
of my mouth was pretty big and I had to wear a plate otherwise my
speech was dreadful (well, people said they couldn't tell but I
could), so I decided to have the hole fixed up. I saw Mr Goodacre at
the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, before this all my sugery was
done at Queen Mary's, Roehampton, but that was a long time ago.

Anyway, the reason I'm on here is because I've been searching and
searching but I can't find anyone else that's had the cleft palate
repaired at this late stage. Being an 80's child, obviously things
have changed and they used to fix the palate at a very young age,
but just then. Once I'd had my orthodontics the hole had been
stretched open somewhat. I think these days they bone graft further
back or something.

The surgery was not incredibly successful (grrrrr wish I'd never
bothered) and the palate is currently in the process of collapsing
again, but hopefully there will at least be some improvement from
before. I would love to talk to anyone who has had a similat
problem, or from anyone younger who would like to talk to someone
who's already been through the worst!

I live in Portsmouth, UK at the moment, but will be moving to
California in a month's time to get married to my fiance :).

Sorry for the obscenly long message!!

Maria x