Travel Day.

Today started out at 5am with our travels starting for round 2 of Brody's  journey to big boy ears. We landed in San Francisco at about 12:45 CA time. Brody did very well on the plane, now waiting in line for the rental car was a little harder to entertain him. The wait was about an hour and a half.

Once we got in the car and headed out of the parking garage, we both felt that we had never left. It was all the same, we are getting to be pros at this California driving. And the scenery is all about the same as April, a few different flowers blooming but lots of brown dry grass!

We checked into our hotel. Then We went grocery shopping and got some goodies for Brody for after surgery, you know the staples, jello, vanilla and chocolate pudding, m&m yogurt, and of course some tow mater chicken noodle soup. Then we checked out a new grocery store with a farmers market.

Tomorrow we are heading to a little amusement park so Brody can have a little fun before his pre-op appointments in the afternoon and then his surgery early on Thursday morning.

Night all!

Cleared for water. Pumpkins. Getting ready for #2...

We had an appointment last week Wednesday, (6.5.13) for a small cleaning and to check on the canal.  The Dr said the canal looked great and said it is ok to get water in the canal now! Yipee... this is a big step since bath time is a little tricky trying to protect the canal with boats flying, rubber ducks squirting and hair washing. :)  (at least it will be a victory until Thursday...lol) We are continuing to use the mold for the canal with the drops every night. We need to continue this for about 4 months until he has surgery on the outer ear and then they will make a new mold to fit his new ear and canal!

Last weekend we started planting all the pumpkins for Brody's Harvest for Hearing benefit. We moved our patch this year to make the hayride go in a different direction. We didn't get them all planted in one day, but am thankful that we finished today and before we leave for round 2 in California.  We are also adding a kids corn maze to the benefit this year and am excited to see how this turns out. The corn looks really good, now we just need to hope we don't' have a drought this summer again.

Today we had Brody's physical to clear him for the surgery. It was nice to go to our local doctor and show him body's new canal. Brody is very proud of his canal and so are we. He was amazed with how good it looked as well.  The DR asked him if he likes his new canal and his response was yes. I then asked him why he liked it.With a great big smile on his face he replied. "Cuz I can hear!!!!"  He even had to prove it to the Dr. So we took his headband off and the DR whispered "baseball"  and asked him what he said, and sure enough Brody whispered it right back to him!! :)

Our next surgery will be very similar to the first one. He will be having his right canal opened. Brody's right side had a lower score when he had his CT Scan. We are very hopeful that it will go as well as the first surgery. I few things that they informed us might be why it scored lower; the middle bones might not be connected properly or there is a mass of  something in there(if it is a mass, they should be able to laser it out).  I am also a little nervous that once we get to the hospital he will not be very eager to drink the "happy juice" and it may be a little difficult there. But he is excited to go back and ride the airplane!

Please continue to  pray for Brody  as we are getting closer to our next surgery date, and for Brody's parents as we need lots of encouragement, this one maybe a little easier knowing the procedure but not knowing what's inside his little head is hard. We are defiantly reassured that Brody is in God's hands and is with us every step of our journey. We will be flying out on Tuesday the 18th and having Brody second surgery on Thursday the 20th.

Canal tips, cleaning, next surgery

We went to Brody's checkup last week wednesday. We had great answers from our local ENT. He looked at the canal and was pleased with the size but wanted us to do the canal tips as the DRs in California reccomended. Dr Kershner cleaned out the ear with lots of debri and wax, following the cleaning he then placed the first canal tip in his ear. This whole process went very well, Brody does pretty good, but I think laying on the table is a little intimidating. Therefore Mom had to also lay on the table! :) oh the things we do!

I contacted California with all my concerns about the next surgery. They were very considerate and addressed all of them. This I am very thankful for, as I was stressing out  a little bit. We still haven't decided whether we are staying out there the extra week or not this time around.

Today we need to make a special mold for brody's canal which he will wear at night for the next 4 months. Hopefully his canal will stay the size it is now and will continue to heal properly!

We are starting our plans for this years benefit. We are looking for donations for raffle items and volunteers to help work the 2 days of the pumpkin patch. The benefit is October 12 & 13. If anyone has any new ideas we are open to them as well.

We need to go back next week for another cleaning in Milwaukee and check up.

Narrowing Canal... Stressed Mom.... Post-op #4

     Brody has been doing amazingly well through out this whole first surgery experience.... which makes me sooo happy. :) 
     Our last email & update to CA we were told that we needed to do Brody's mold for his ear... We were not aware of a mold when we were out there, nor were they in our post surgery instructions. This part was a little confusing to us, since when we deal with schduleing of appoinments we talk with one person, then for post care another person, and so on and so forth... We have been getting mixed answers. This is a little stressful for me.  I feel that I need these questions answered in a timely manner  to prevent infections and etc... narrowing of the canal!
     We have been sending updated pictures to the Doctor out in CA throughout our whole post surgery healing. With the last photo that I sent, we got some not so great reply back... Brody's canal is narrowing more then it should be. So he needs to wear 'canal tips' for 3 days straight with some special gel on it to help make the canal wider. With this being said, it sounds easy to just put in a canal tip, aka ear plug,  in his ear right? Well not so easy with 3 year old. Brody does not let me touch his canal at all... He finally has gotten used to doing the drops everynight, we are in a routine. (Not touching the canal at all) Now we are suppose to place this oversized ear plug in his ear.... Well lets just say this was not a very pleasant experience. It started with lots of tears and ended with more tears and no canal tip in the canal, ugh.... I think Brody has a lot of debri in his canal from surgery yet... This maybe causing some irritation in his canal. Therefore his canal is red in spots as well. I am hoping that tomorrow at our #4 post-op appointment, in Milwaukee, he will have his canal cleaned throughly and this will help with the canal tips over the next several days. (My one concern here, is I have to convince our Milwaukee Dr that he needs to do the microscopic cleaning which our CA Doctor is recommending to prevent infections. Mind you, the Milwaukee Dr said we didn't even need to come to this next appointment.) Then hoping that  he will place the canal tips in place for the first time so we do not have a repeat of try #1 with all the tears. (Brody & Mom) Wish us luck here!!

      I was told today on the phone from the Drs  in CA that we are recommended to stay out there for a 3-4 week period for the surgery. When we schduled our first surgery we were told only a week after the surgery. I have already booked, the hotel and plane tickets. Now I need to get down to business and figure out exactly how long we need to stay in June. I just want to do everything "PERFECT" for the little man and make sure we do everything the correct way to optimize his healing! Maybe I should just  move to California for the next year, so we can have the experts at our finger tips and relieve a little stress. ;)

     Please send up a few extra prayers for Brody as well as his very stressed out Mom! We are praying that Wednesday's appointment goes smoothly! ;)  Will update more after our next appoinment Wednesday evening!

May. ENT. 1 Month Post Op....

Hello folks, Hope everyone is enjoying this rainy-warm spring weather. We sure are loving these warm days as both Brody and Rilyn love being outside. We have had a BUSY April!! I'm not sure where it went? :)

We had Brody's 2nd post op appointment on April 22nd. We decided to go to a local ENT in Berlin. I was hoping to save a little travel time to go local and not drive to Milwaukee to the Children's Hospital. Well much to our surprise, this was a BAD decision. We had a not-so-good experience with this ENT and decided that our next appoinment will be made in Milwaukee, even if it takes 10 hours to get there! ;) Brody did great at the appoinment, he sat there like a big boy and was excited to go to "the Tractor store" after for doing such a great job. Mom & Dad on the other hand were not so relaxed. But we all survived and his brand new canal looks AWESOME and we are overjoyed to have had the oppurtunity to go through this whole process.... so far.

Brody's next appoinment is this Wednesday in Milwaukee at the Children's Hospital with our regular ENT who has experience with this type of operation. Here they will be removing the disk in his canal along with any left over packing and I believe lightly cleaning it. I'm excited to hear what the ENT has to say!

Over the last month we have noticed that Brody's hearing has increased greatly!! Not at first, but within the last few weeks, I hear brody say; "What's that noise?" and "Did you heat that?" and "What is that?" and my favorite as of tonight; " I can hear without my hearing aides! " Whenever he says things like this, I get butterflies in my stomach and think to myself, Is this really happening? can he really hear without his BAHAs? The Lord is amazing and has blessed us with amazing doctors to help us in this journey!! :) I am soo happy tonight and can't stop smiling!

Some amazing people in the community have hosted some fundraisers for Brody the last few weeks. The Country Pub Crawl and a Zumbathon. I participated in both these events and was shown so much support and kindness from all the people who organized and participated in these events. THANK YOU! you know who you are!!!!

Last weekend we attended the Germania Benefit Parade. This is a wonderful event which raises money for people in need. They have donated to Brody and we are so thankful and are happy to come and support it for others in need.

Today we booked our flight, hotel, and rental car for our 2nd surgery! Yeah we are more excited this time around, which is better then being nervous nellies the whole time!! Brody asked the other day if we could go shopping for California. I'll take this as a sign as he is ready for phase 2 and another trip for surgery!

I also wanted to thank you all for following us and our journey, as of tonight, Brody's Harvest for Hearing facebook page has 307 "LIKES" This melts my heart that there is this many people who care and support our Brody Boy!! Plus all our followers on the blog and website!!! :)

11 Days Post Op...

Our flight home was uneventful! *This is a good thing. We traveled all day... left the hotel at 6ish AM and got home (to our home in MONTELLO)  9ish PM that night. It was a long day espically since I had aquired a horrible cold! But we were very happy to be sleeping in our own beds!

Brody has been a trooper through this whole process, through the ups and downs, I have to say the ups are far more then the downs! (I know I say he is a trooper alot, but I am surprised how well he has done with the whole thing) And the best part is, I feel like he is a changed kid. He likes to show off his ear with his "big hole". At the airport he made friends with a little boy about the same age as him, and the little boy asked brody what happened to your ear. Brody proudly said," I had surgery!" The boy clearly didn't know what surgery was, so he comes over by me, and I said to him, "Tell him that you had surgery to get a hole to help you hear better." And he did. Just the way he said it, you could tell he was very proud of it. The little boy still didn't quite get it, but I just loved watching Brody talk about it.

We have to put drops in brody's new canal 2 times a day... at first this was a real treat, with brody not wanting anything to do with it. Now he does it willingly!!! :) 11 days after his surgery, we are bandage free... His last bandage that was covering the skin graft site fell off! Brody was excited and showing off the bandage!! (not that anyone would want to see it) Lol

Over all Brody is doing great! He is back to all his normal running and fighting with his sister. The only exception is we can's wash his hair yet. We are getting there. One phase at a time! This weekend is a fundraiser for Brody, which I'm excited to be a part of, County Bar Pub Crawl. Then next weekend is a Zumbathon with proceeds going to Brody as well!! We are soo thankful to the wonderful people who want to help with this journey! (for more info on these, check out the fundraiser tab on website.)

My goal this week is to get the airplane tickets and hotel booked for our second phase of "Brody's Big Boy Ears."  June 20th will be here quickly!

Lots of Love, and thank you all for sticking with us!

Tuesday. Park. Home.

Tuesday. Today we went to our final post-op Appointment with the Drs.. Brody was very nervous to go as he tells me he doesn't like the Drs.. :( I try to tell him that this is a good thing that he is getting this done now but trying to explain pain to a three year old is not my for-Taye. With that in mind, our last appointment was a lot of tears and a little kicking! :( but in the end we were all smiles and hugs for dr Roberson and his crew, with the promise of purple ice cream on the way home.  The dr said everything looks normal and wanted to warn us that with him being so scared, our next post op appointment back home might need to have a little bribing and maybe even some "sleepy medicine" . Oh boy!

Following the appointment we went to a local park and let the kids run around and play for a few hours. Then on to find the purple ice cream!

We'll the week has been an experience at the least! Lots of ups and downs! We are very thankful for the doctors here and their amazing talent! They make us feel like part of there family! We are over joyed that the outcome of the surgery seems to be perfect as of now! With lots of hope for a successful healing process. Brody is ready for home,and so are James and I! Living out of a hotel has its perks, but mostly we need to get back to our normalcy of back home! If there really is such a thing!  Somehow Brody and I attracted colds. Not fun! And I got a swollen eye lid, maybe a Sty? (I have no idea what cause these,but it may be a stress factor!) lol

Better hit that hay! We need to be out of the hotel and on the road to the airport by 6 am!

Night all! The next post will be from Wisconsin! By the way, the temp today was 76 degrees.  I will try to pack as much of the sunny weather as i can in the suitcase with me! :)