Update - post surgery #2 hearing test

I just wanted to post an update since Jack's hearing test this week. Dr. Colen cleaned out Jack's ears prior to the test this time. We then went over for the test. The audiologist had Jack throw balls into a little basket when he heard the tones. He was so funny, he had to smack the ball she was holding with his ball before he would wait for the tone - kind of like a little "cheers!" He did pretty well, but ran out of steam at the end. At the very high frequency, he tested at a pretty significant loss, but that could have been because he wasn't paying attention well enough. A couple of times he was waiting and said, "I can't hear it!"

Anyway, his hearing is much better than I expected on the day of surgery. He is hearing at about 40dB across frequencies - except the very highest. Of course we have seen this in his speech over the past few weeks. He has just gotten so much more clear and he is giving Jaden a run for her money on airwave time - he is talking so much!

Of course, we have a waiting game here now to see if the hearing stabilizes at this level - hopefully it will. If it does, Dr. Roberson does not think that we will need to aid Jack's hearing from this point forward. Amazing. He says that two ears working together at that level should serve Jack very well.

We continue to be a little dissapointed in the shrinkage that we are seeing with the skin grafts resulting in wrinkling on the front of his left ear and the backs of both ears. I have asked Dr. Reinisch about this and he says it is from the use of the split thickness skin grafts. He says they see this a little sometimes - more often with asian skin. He has also said that Jack is in a league of his own on this issue. He says we will just have to see how much they soften over time and address it at the stage 2 surgery. He said he may have to add a little skin.

Dr. Roberson and Dr. Colen felt that the little white spot on Jack's left ear is actually the medpor framework that we can see through the skin. This is where the skin struggled and peeled off. We will see what Dr. Reinisch says, but they were pretty certain. Neither of them felt it was at risk of exposure.

So, we are scheduled for December 22 for Stage 2 in Palo Alto and will probably keep this date even though Dr. Roberson will likely not need to do a revision.

When I get a chance, I will post Jack's audiogram here:




All for now!