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.
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