The Medical Exam

Yesterday we took Miss Lulu for an important step in the process--her medical exam. This is necessary in order to receive your child's visa for HOME. Our guide obviously has experience in shuffling families in and out pretty quickly and in an orderly fashion. Our first stop was ENT. They found some wax in her ears (I asked them to check closely because little one is LOUD). And they did not see any evidence of overly-enlarged tonsils, which was great news since that was something listed on her medical file. Perhaps moving away from coal country is helping her tender tissues already. 

The next step was the general exam. Lulu was examined carefully and it was determined that one leg and one arm (on her weak side) are shorter than the others. We'd already figured that out. She received an official diagnosis here in China of Cerebral Palsy...two words that years ago would've scared us. But not now. Those words don't define our daughter. She's just Lulu, and she needs some physical and occupational therapy...

Our next step was vision. They used a primitive hand chart initially and quickly concluded that Lulu needed further testing. There we discovered that Lulu's eyes are JUST like her Mama's! Go figure. She is near-sighted and she has an astigmatism in one eye.  She'll look darling in glasses, won't she?

 

Lastly, Lulu had her TB test. This is the one station all adoptive families dread, because they won't allow you in the room to console your children while they draw blood. Truly grueling. Lulu was gone for about five minutes, and I became alarmed when I heard a child crying. Thankfully it wasn't her, and when she emerged...no tears (which isn't necessarily something to celebrate) but we consoled her anyways. She is such a tough little cookie.

And on that note, we JUST received the text from our guide saying that she passed her TB test! Next stop...U.S. Consulate tomorrow morning for our visa appointment. And we are in the final stretches to the finish line. Praise the Lord!