Ashlyn's Ear March 23, 2011

Ashlyn went back to Dr. Farrior today to get the inner ear packing removed and new clean inner ear packing put in. It was bleeding still when he took out the original stuff, but he said it looked good and there wasn't any infection. He talked to Jason a little more about the cholesteatoma (cyst) that was in her ear. He said that it was just pure massive and that there wasn't a place in her ear that it wasn't in. Only 2% of his cases he does not get the cholesteatoma out in one surgery and has to go back in....well, today he said that he had not been confident that he got it all out and he will need to go back in at the end of the year. He said the next surgery will not be as extensive and since he's going back in anyways, if he sees anything he can do to improve her hearing, he will do. He will basically lift the ear drum and if there's any air pockets, that means that there's cholesteatoma left and he will explore from there.

I feel bad that she wasn't diagnosed with this sooner, and if I hadn't been persistent and fired the first ENT and sought out the pediatric ENT, we may not have found it until it caused other severe problems. We are so thankful that we found the right doctor, thanks to my mom's ENT neighbor, to do the ear surgery. He's just that good!

On another note, Kaylyn went to the Southern District Science Fair this morning and had to answer questions with the judges. She didn't place, but there were over 500 contestants...oh well. I think she had fun with the whole process and learned a lot.



I'm just so proud of how smart my girls are. Kaylyn's Straight As (principal's list) and Ashlyn's A/B Honor Roll. This is awesome for Ashlyn seeing as she never attended school before 1.5 years ago and is now getting Bs in reading. The comprehension is still a little behind, but this is due to some of the language barriers that still exist. She got an A in phonics and a B in math too. She's doing awesome! Also, her speech is improving a lot with speech therapy. She's learning to say certain letters the correct way with her submucous cleft palate so that she can be more easily understood. The next big task is checking her eye sight. We've been told by two different individuals that work with her that think she might have some sight issues (reads to close to the books/papers consistently). One step at a time to make my child's life healthier and easier!

God was so awesome in showing us how much we could love another individual that did not come from us biologically. We fell in love with this child almost instantly and to me, there is no difference between biological and adopted. They are loved equally and abundantly.