Around the World

I had some amazing news this week! My son has had numerous problems with his nose and mouth since birth, affecting his speech. Nobody knew what was wrong, but yesterday we finally saw an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor who was able to give us answers. He has a problem with the muscles above his palate, and the valve between his nose and throat doesn't close. At all. While we are so excited to finally have a diagnosis, the solution is surgery. And due to our insurance being military insurance and therefore not accepted by all doctors, we are going to have to pay some out of pocket expenses. He will have 1, possibly 2, of them, and they are both somewhat complicated, and that means quite costly. We are very grateful for getting answers and that the doctor who found them will also be doing his surgery, and feel that it is worth any cost to give him the chance to talk normally, without his parents having to translate. (He is 4.)

However, this is going to mean saving all we can to pay the medical bills. The hospital will accept our insurance for the operating room, anesthesia, recovery.... but the doctor's fee will still be hefty. This means a cutback on the negotiable amount of our budget, ie. groceries and other miscellaneous. I don't want to stop our tour, I have been having so much fun with it, and I know you guys enjoy following along with us.

We will be doing our tour hopefully next week. This week is too crazy and the person who volunteered to pay for this one is working the weekend, big work rush. So we are shooting for next weekend. I am going to do a dinner at least once a month, possibly twice. We'll have to see. I apologize for the cutback, but we won't have the money for the exotic extras that some of these next countries will need.

Cross your fingers, and we'll hopefully have some wonderful new foods next week! I will try and post more recipes to make up for it, I love cooking too much to do tuna casserole 3 times a week!