A Summer full of Surgery

Yes, that is what the Summer of 2010 is turning out to be. It started with what we thought was going to be a simple tonsilectomy and turned into not 1 but 2 ear surgeries.

Allison had surgery today on her left ear. She has cholesteatoms in both ears. Today the doc cleaned out the scar tissure from the repeated breaking of the sac behind the eardrum, removed the eardrum and 2 of the 3 bones in the middle ear. He shortened her ear canal, so no yuck can get in. He was careful to leave enough of an ear canal that Allison will still be able to wear her ear molds with her Cochlear Implant. She was in a fair amount of pain when I saw her in recovery, but right now she is happy on pain med and playing with play-doh in the family room where there is carpet, any othertime, she would be at the kitchen table, yes the joys of having surgery.

We are waiting for her to heal from this surgery before we schedule the right ear, oh am I not looking forward to telling her that she not done yet.

Update on Allison

Allison's surgery is next Friday, July 23rd. The doctor wants it done sooner rather then later, which means no family reunion for us on the 24th. :-(
The plan is to move the wire of the CI back into place and take out both of her eardrums and shorten the ear canal, so no bacteria can get into the cavity where the eardrum was.
We are hoping that this is the all the surgeries Allison will need and that she will be able to enjoy her last few weeks of summer before school starts again.

A Bit of Good News

Yesterday I took Allison to her audiologist to check the electrode that is in her left ear drum, we wanted to make sure that it was not causing her problems.
After running the necessary tests, it was determined that it was not an actually electrode but the lead wire that was in her ear drum.
This means that right now all the electrodes are still in place and working as they should be. It still means that it will need a surgical fix, but there is no risk of the implant failing.

We still don't know when they will do the surgery, we are hoping in the next 2 weeks or so. We would really like to enjoy the last few weeks of summer without this hanging over our heads.

Thank you for the prayers, keep them coming.

Allison's surgery

All went well on Friday in regards to Allison's tonsil and adenoid surgery. The doctor came to see us and told us all went well with that part of the surgery. Then he shared the bad news, while cleaning the mounds of wax out of her ears( I have never meet such a waxy kid) he found that both ear drums are retracted and paper thin, possibly from repeat ear infections( though she never complained about her ear hurting or never ran a fever) or it could be the Eustachian tubes not working. The left ear drum is so thin that an electrode from her CI has broken through. Needless to say we were shocked and a bit scared at the thought of the electrode being exposed to the outside. This needs to be corrected in the next few weeks. Allison is at risk for infection and failure of her CI if we let it go much longer.

Allison is looking at an additional surgery where they will fix the electrode and then most likely take both of her ear drums out( being deaf she does not use them anyway).

What an awful way to spend the summer, but at least we found this out before any serious damage was done.

I will give updates soon.

Please keep Allison in your thoughts and prayers. This is going to be rough on her.