Ashlyn's Ear September 26, 2011

So Ashlyn saw the ear doctor today in Tampa for a follow-up/pre-op visit.  She also saw a plastic surgeon to talk about fixing her other ear that was not fully developed when she was born.  He said that he could fix it so that it looks like her other ear.  She had the hearing test before seeing the doctor and we got some really good news from that.  Her hearing has improved from 50 decibels (the last visit) all the way up to 18 decibels!  It’s almost the same as the other good ear!!!  There was something of concern though, her ear has formed an air pocket which is indicative of another cholesteatoma trying to form, but it just means there will be more to fix when he goes back in her ear in December.  He lifted the ear drum a little to make sure it looked good where the air pocket was.  She cried a little, but held still like a big girl.  He said it looked okay, and could be clean because we still flush it with the solution and blow dry it every time it gets wet.  We are going to schedule the surgery for December 22^nd so that she doesn’t miss any school and will be mostly healed before coming back to school hopefully.  We are very excited about her hearing improvement though.

Here’s a funny little side note though:  The plastic surgeon said “Hello, how are you?” to Ashlyn and she responded.  Based on her response, he pulled his little light out and told Ashlyn to open up.  He looked in her mouth and said, oh, she has a submucous cleft palate.  This from someone who saw her for only a minute and hadn’t read her chart yet, whereas an ENT she saw for 6 months who performed a tonsillectomy, partial adenoidectomy, and tubes in her ears couldn’t diagnose her not only with the cholesteatoma that was poking through her ear drum and going towards her brain, but also the submucous cleft palate.  Jason was just amazed and asked how he knew, and he said just from the way she spoke and then for sure when he looked and saw.  Amazing!

Just wanted to let everyone know since some of you were following along through last year when she went through all of this.  She’s doing so well and hopefully with the tutoring and speech therapy we can get her caught up with all the other kids with language quicker than not.  I’m hopeful…look at how far God has brought our little girl so far in such a short amount of time.  It hasn’t even been two years yet.  November 23^rd will be the 2^nd anniversary of our Gotcha Day (the day we met Ashlyn for the first time).

Anyways, hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far!