Final post-op. Home. Cards.

Thursday was our final post op appointment. We were instructed how to care for Brody's new canal, ear drum and implant. With all of the what NOT to dos. And found out he has 2 more weeks of the non-normal boy routine. No running-no water, all the fun stuff. Said our good-byes and with high hopes of not returning for obvious reasons. Dr Roberson was very positive and liked how things were looking and healing. 

Friday started out at 3am for our travel day back to WI. Everything went very smooth until we were about to land and it was a little windy and we were in for a bumpy landing. All and all we were very happy to be on the ground! 

Brody was beyond excited to get home for 2 reasons! 1. He missed his siblings 2. Rilyn let the cat out of the bag and said he had a lot of cards in the mail!!!

 😉

He was very surprised to get home and have a whole bunch of cards to open ! Thank you to everyone who took the time to think of him and send him get well wishes with your cards, pictures, drawings, and sticker art! You all really put a smile on his face. Thank you so very much! Once we arrived home he was greeted with an awesome welcome home sign and ballon & candy.  

Thanks to you all who have been sending yours thoughts and prayers also. We are glad to be home and are looking forward to fast healing ! Gods blessings to you all! 

Healing. San Fransisco. Football players.

You probably all have heard me say how hard surgery day is for Brody. Well the healing part is always the hardest part for mom and dad. When having surgery on the canal, ear drum, and the middle bones (in brod's case, his prosesis). Brody has some strict restrictions. No water, no swimming, no baths, no running, no jumping, no bouncing, no climbing, no head banging with his sister while skypeing, and the list goes on. We have had a rough time in the past few surgeries keeping our BOY to sit still and watch TV. This time around, Brody is older and (mostly) understands that he needs to keep still. Brody has said he has no pain after surgery which is AWESOME!!!!! He does have 5 days of 2xday antibiotics which are not so enjoyable getting him to take. Let's just say if you need any tips on how to hide medicine in any type of food or drink. I've got you covered. 😉

We have been hanging out in the hotel playing uno, drawing pictures, playing games on the ipad(tractor pulling and duck dynasty are the favorites), and building Legos. There is only so much hotel time that I can take and we needed to get out. Brody wanted to head to the beach so we both thought his was a great idea, as we would be in the car about an hour each way. We took a very scenic route on Page Mill Rd from Mountain Veiw to the San Mcgreigo beach. It was a beautiful day walking the beach looking for sea shells. 

We then headed along the coast to Half Moon Bay for some lunch at the Princeton Seafood Market, which had some delicious fresh fish. 

We headed to San Fransisco one day to sight see and take in sights and sounds of the city. These day trips are perfect as we spend a quite a bit of time in the car and lots of time walking. Which is doctor approved. 

Today we had our first post op appointment. They removed the packing form his ear and checked everything over. He said it is healing nicely and is thinking positivity on getting some good hearing results and great healing. He also removed the 4 sutures from the skin graft site. Dr Roberson & Kinsey are great at getting Brody to think about other things while getting what they need done. Brody learned that he was tuffer then most football players with his many sutures over the last few years added up to more then most football players.  

Brody has been a real trooper these last few days and is looking forward to getting home. As is Rilyn and Milo looking forward to us getting back. Brody and Rilyn are fun to watch and listen to on our nightly skypes. Tonight was a little crazy as Rilyn and Brody were head banging and as you may know, a big no-no for Brody. As much as we are looking forward to getting back, that will make Brody's healing that much harder as he has his siblings to keep up with, the running, bike riding, bird chasing, and other normal shenanigans. 

Clouds, smores, and the big #6....

Yesterday was our travel day. Left at 5am and flew from MKE to SAn Francisco. It was a nice 4 hour flight with some great views from the plane. Brody was looking for our house/grandma & grandpa house so he could wave to Rilyn but had no luck. ✈️

Once we arrived we ate lunch at one of our favorite sandwichs spots, simply sandwiches, and checked into our hotel. Then we had our pre-op appointment and hearing tests at the California Ear Institute. Dr Roberson confirmed the weeping skin inside the right canal. We had been communicating throw Skype and emails, but it is really hard to take photos of the inside of an ear canal! 

Our hotel hosts a nightly mixer and was a perfect way to end our first day in California. we roasted marshmallows and enjoyed smores with a nice cold beverage. 

Thursday morning we were scheduled for surgery at 10am and ended up going back at 11am.  Brody dreads surgery day. I can't blame him since he has 5 surgeries under his belt already! It was a rough week prior as he is older and knows exactly what to expect. 

This morning I was watching my little man sleep and was reading some texts and good luck posts from my sister and sister-in-law, and was thinking about how much it means to me to have such a great support system of family and friends. How awesome would it be to have Brody see this first hand too. So this leads to a favor I have to ask you. If you have a spare moment, please send Brody a  get well, thinking of you, or simply some encouraging words in a card. He loves getting mail, and will be nice for him to get back home and have some cards waiting for him! 😊 w4146 12th Rd, Montello WI 53949

Surgery: Brody wasn't so cooperative going into surgery, but did great once he had some medicine to ease him and start to veg out. Dr Roberson did exactly what he thought and then some. The surgery was just under 2 hours. The Dr ended up replaceing his prosesis on his right side with a little bit longer rod to attach to the ear drum. The weeping skin which we could see from the outside was causing the skin to get inflamed and was pulling the ear dum away from the prosthesis. They then replaced that skin and put a new ear drum in. It was a little more then they had anticipated but will hopefully heal well and get much improved hearing results, just as good or better then the left side. They also went in to the left canal and cleaned it up, as he had some debris directly on the ear drum. Dr Roberson said this cleaning should help with the high frequencies as he was having decreased hearing in that ear as well. Brody slept for 1.5 hours in the recovery room and was very tired waking up. Once we left the surgery center, he slept in the car on the way back to the hotel. He ate some food and then went back to bed. 

Purple is the color of royalty. They choose purple for all their patients because each and everyone is treated like royalty! We love Dr Roberson and all his staff. They do take the very best care of our baby! 

Thank you to all who have prayed for, called, texted, and thought of Brody during his surgery. God is great! We  still have 4 weeks to see what the final result is, but please continue to pray for him as he needs to heal and be still(no running, jumping, swimming, etc.). 

Granulation Tissue... Hearing Aids.... California....

Hi all. Hope all of our Brody followers are having a great Summer?


Brody enjoyed his first year of pre-school, making many new friends and getting used to the whole new school thing.  Brody wore his hearing aide (BAHA) everyday that he went to school and had no hearing issues. His teacher said he did great! As the school year went on, it was harder and harder for me to get Brody to wear his BAHA as it was uncomfortable and hot as we got into the warmer months.


Throughout the school year we headed to Milwaukee for Doctors appointments 3 times. Normally we would have only headed to Milwaukee every 6 months, but we were battling the Granulation tissue. The one that I mentioned had gone away last September, well it has been repeatedly coming back and we think it affects his hearing each time. The ENT prescribes drops to help dissolve the tissue but for some reason it keeps coming back. One thought is that the canal is not getting a chance to dry out, leaving moisture in there. We tried solving this with the use of ear plugs whenever Brody goes in water, but this didn't seem to work. It is hard to figure out what is causing the tissue to grow. Brody has a lot of debris in the right canal when we go for our cleanings, we decided that something needs to change.  Especially since his canal gets cleaned every 3 months and that is still not enough as all the granulation tissue keeps growing and his hearing is decreasing as we get farther down the road.


We had decided that we are going to try a traditional hearing aid in his left ear as this is the canal that is very healthy. Brody needs to have some sort of hearing aid as his hearing as decreased well below normal hearing. We ordered the hearing aide at his last appointment and we will be going next week to get fitted. We are hoping this will aide him enough to get him up to normal hearing. 


After we decided to get the aide, we consulted with Dr Roberson's team in California and discussed what was going on with Brody and about his hearing loss. We have decided to head back out to California and fix this issue we are having with the canal. During this next surgery, they are tentatively going to reline his canal with new skin to get rid of whatever is making the granulation tissue keep growing. And they are also going to look at his prosthesis in his right ear as after looking at his audiograms, they think the prosthesis may have shifted or something, which may also be the reason for the hearing decrease. This surgery will tentatively last only 1-2 hours.  He will have to have a skin graft on his head again and will need to stay still for 4 weeks following surgery and no water.  OF course all these things are tentative as the Doctor is only going from what we tell him and Brody's records from the hospital here. Once we get there and they do a pre-op this may all change. 


As much as we don't want Brody to have to go threw another surgery, we feel that this is the right thing to do and will be best for long term care and hopefully increase his hearing. (our main goal since day 1) Brody also doesn't want to have this surgery as he knows all to well what it entails. :(
I am hoping this is the last one (as we did 2 surgeries ago) We will be flying out on July 22 and be out there for 10 days. 


Please say a few extras prayers for our family, but especially our Brody boy as he is the one who has to go through  his 6th surgery in his 5 years of life. 


God has a perfect plan for us. He never does it all at once; just step by step to teach us to Walk by FAITH not by sight.