Irony in a Wet Definittion

Our family loves Family Feud. We even went to a live taping of the show a month ago. BIG TIME Fun!!

As for watching the show at home, it's our ritual. Every night after dinner we all sit to watch at least part of an episode together. It's one of the few television show that we can all agree on. And seriously, what show actually encourages you to shout at it and still brings families together???

So, last night, Brian, Brielle and I are watching an episode after eating a marvelous (but not at all healthy) new recipe I cooked for stuffed chicken.

The Family Feud question was:  Name something you'd hate to find out you did in your sleep?

Ding, ding, ding.... SNORE!

Ding, ding, ding... TALK!

Ding, ding, ding... DROOL!



With that answer, Brielle signed to me asking what "drool" meant. Seriously???

This is the gal whom we've struggled with since she was toddler with drooling issues! It's probably one of THE MOST frustrating aspect of her disability.

The cerebral palsy affected her mouth most of all. Brielle can't talk. She struggles to chew hard things. She can't close her lips around a straw. She can't pucker for a kiss.

She keeps a washcloth attached to a badge reel on her pants to use to wipe the drool from her chin. AND we probably have to remind her 20 times a day to do it because she can't feel when her chin is wet!

We've tried numerous medications since Brielle was four years old. The one that helped that most stopping being manufactured two years ago. She uses a patch now that "sort of" helps. She had her salivary glands surgically removed from under tongue when she was seven years old (hardly helped at all and she had a difficult recovery with it, too). She had Botox injections just last fall (complete failure). We have a few more options we could try (some more invasive than others), but pretty much, what you see is what you get with this.

And with all of that experience with drool she didn't know what the word meant. Wow.

Suffice it to say, we had a brief but important conversation about drool last night. And all because of Family Feud.

Well, Family Feud and CMV.