Cleaning, Hearing Test....

Today we traveled to Milwaukee for Brody's ear canal cleaning and a hearing test. Brody was a very brave boy and laid on the table all by him self for his cleaning. She cleaned a lot of debris out of the right canal and just a little in the left.  He did great!  There is an area in the right canal has granulation tissue. so she prescribed, some drops with antibodics and steroids to help it. We head back to meet with Dr Kershner in 3 weeks to check on progress. 

Then we had our next appointment for Brody's hearing test. He loves stacking the blocks,throwing the balls, and or using the pegs. Today he got to stack the pegs however he wanted and loved it. The right ear didn't score as high as the audiologist would have liked. (Maybe due to the granulation tissue) It is in the moderate hearing loss category. The left ear was right around the normal hearing level. She wants Brody to wear his ponto BAHA to make up for the hearing loss on the right side. 

She reprogrammed the ponto and let brod pick out a new single headband to wear one verses two BAHAs. She also programmed it to be FM ready if Brody needs it once he starts school.  Speaking of school, Brody will be starting 4K this September. Now we need to start figuring out the details on a FM system and how to get one.   She also said since the ENT cleaned out the right canal a lot, that it may have affected the way the hearing test turned out, so we did schedule another hearing test for September.  And discussed possibly getting an in the ear hearing aide if needed.   Here is brod with his sticker from the dr, planes fire and rescue, he was pretty excited and wants to see the movie! 

Harvest for hearing: Paying it forward. 

Save the date: October 12 & 13. 

The pumpkins are looking good  for the harvest for hearing benefit. Plans are going well. Pedal pull booked. Face painter scheduled. Corn maze has a new location, under the irrigation system, the corn is looking A-MAZE-ING!  We are currently looking for donations for our basket raffle. If you have baskets or items you wish to donate please let us know. 

Just a reminder, the benefit proceeds are going to youth in need of help with medical expenses. ( if you know of someone in need, please let us know) Also to ear community, a non -profit organization focusing on helping adults and children with hearing loss. 

Ear Cleaning....2014 Harvest.... Germaina Benefit Parade

Today we traveled to see Dr Kerschner at his New Berlin office.  Brody was scheduled for a ear canal cleaning of both ears and possibly a treatment of 'silver nitrate' for his sore inside his right canal. After his cleaning, Dr Kerschner decided it was healing on its own and that it would probably be better off if we left it alone. That if he treated it, it would probably do more harm then good. Which is great news!! Brody did awesome at his appointment, and laid on the table for the Dr all by himself. Mom was so proud of him, as this was the first time he did this willingly!!

We scheduled a hearing test for July and a follow up with Dr Kerschner. 

We then had a Brody and Mom date night at Machine Shed. Brody loves going there because he gets to play with the tractors while we wait for our food! He was such a trooper!!!

We are starting to plan this years Brody's Harvest for Hearing. We are looking for any one who would be interested in helping us organize and plan this years event. We were very fortunate that our Pumpkin Patch & Hayride event has been so successful over the past few years, that we have raised all the funds for Brody and are excited to PAY IT FORWARD to other children in need. If anyone knows of any area children in need of help with medical bills please let us know. We are working on a form, but I think work of mouth is best. Please watch our website as well as facebook to stay up to date for details!

Also wanted to mention that this weekend, April 26 will be the Germania Benefit Parade (1:00pm) and FOOD! This is a great organization which helps people in Marquette County who need help with medical bills. They were very generous to Brody during our fundraising process. If you have some spare time, stop out and support a great cause, they have food, bake sale, silent & live auction and much more! And Brody will be the grand marshal in the parade this year!! :)

Chicago, 1 Year

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be heading to Chicago to meet with Dr Reinisch.  We are excited to see him and see how he thinks the ear is healing. Since our last appointment with Dr Pawar, Brody has had another sore in his canal where his mold was rubbing. We emailed our Dr some photos and he thought it could wait till we meet him this Saturday.  We're glad that it isn't an urgent matter and over the past few weeks, it has seemed to be healing on its own.

It will be a long travel day, but we will take it over traveling to Beverly Hills!

I've added a collage of before and after photos of Brody's left ear. April 4th marked one year since we started Brod's journey towards his big boy ears!

Dr Pawar... Removing the mold....

The above photo is of Brody and his doctor, Dr Pawar. (He is looking into beginning the Medpor surgery in Milwaukee.) This is the same doctor that visited Dr Renisch a few weeks before Brody's last surgery to learn the procedure. Dr Renisch recommended Dr Pawar to us for Brody's post-op care.  He was very nice and was wonderful with Brody. Brody wasn't looking forward to this day since he woke up from surgery and saw he had a mold on his ear. But he took it in stride, and did VERY WELL!

We were excited to see the ear with the new skin grafts as we haven't been able to see them yet. To be honest it was very hard to even tell there were any skin grafts as they blended right into the ear. They looked amazing! I believe we heard the comment, "We don't usually see medpor ears that look this good!" Kudos to Dr Renisch for doing such an amazing job on both of Brod's ears!! :)

Brody did such a great job that he got a surprise semi from the nurses and he got to go to the store and pick out a special toy! Dr Pawar then took photos of body's ears and sent them to Dr Renisch out in California. We are waiting to hear how he thinks the ear looks. And what to do for post-op care, so far he is to have a special cream on the skin grafts  and wear the mold for 2.5 months.

Jake the pirate..... Heading home

Once we got settled back into the hotel after brods surgery he was a eating and drinking machine.  He watched cartoons and was ready to go to target to pick out his toy! We then went to target to get his toy and some strawberry milk! Brod had in mind that he wanted Legos like he say in a magazine on the airplane, but once he saw the jake and the Neverland pirate toys he couldn't resist. Oh did I forget we have a boy named jake flying back with us? ;) pictures to come soon.  Over all brod was surprisingly very awake and ready to go anywhere but the hotel. Even though he was a little wobbly, he felt really well.

Brody did very well during the night. Only waking up once for a drink. When he woke up for the day he was ready to rock and roll. He wanted to go to park, zoo, museum, anywhere. Since his post op appointment wasn't till 11am. We decided to go for a walk. So jake and mom and dad headed down melrose ave to see if we could spot any celebrities. We didn't have much luck, but a few days prior dad did see Ellen Degeneris in her porch driving on melrose ave when we were at a stop light.

Then we headed to our appointment with Dr Renisch. They cleaned up the left ear as this was the one that they took the skin graft from and fixed the ear lobe. We still need to make arrangements for taking the mold off in a week once we get home. And also set a date with dr Renisch for April to meet up with him in Chicago.

Our plane takes off from LAX at 6:50am and we will be headed back to Wisconsin.

Thanks again for everyone's kind words and prayers. We are hoping for better luck this time around with the healing process. Night all!

Waking up.... Back to hotel

We were able to go into the recovery room at 11:30. They gave us our pep talk and brod come in sleeping at 11:45. He took a little bit to wake up, and woke up crying so they gave him some medicine in his IV to go back to sleep.  Dr Renisch came in and talked to us. They ended up cleaning the both areas really well . The top sore seemed like the medpor was exposed at one point, so they cleaned it up and stiched it closed, with a tiny skin graft on top. The other area was basically the same, they cleaned it up and put a small skin graft over the top.   They cleaned up the left ear tragis and the old skin graft.  The left ear lobe was starting to pull up a little so they fixed that as well.   I tell you they are miracle workers. :)

Brody was sleeping very well, the nurse had to wake him up. He woke up very mellow and calm. A experience we are not used too, as usually it is very unpleasant.  But he did good and smiled a lot! We know the man upstairs had something to do with that, as pre-op was a tad stressful, he knew we needed a little break. We left the hospital at 1:30 and had to stop at the pharmacy to stop and get his prescription. The nurse gave us strict instructions to give him only water and soda crackers.  Once we got back to the hotel Brody was hungry.  He ate some white cheddar cheese-it's and apple juice. 5 minutes later he wanted ice cream! Yikes.... Needless to say he is feeling very well. (Don't tell brods nurse!)

He has a blue ear mold sewn on again and we will need to have it taken off in  a week. Dr Renisch is calling in a favor him one of his colleagues in Milwaukee. He came to visit dr Renisch a while ago to learn the procedure. He is hoping this dr will be able to fit us into his schedule and take the mold off. We have a post op appointment tomorrow to finalize all the at home details.

Just wanted to update everyone, that Brody is one brave little boy and did awesome! Thank you all for the extra prayers and kind words! :)

Surgery day...

Surgery day is forever the most dreaded day for brod. We try not to talk about it since it always brings tears to his eyes.  This time around our time of arrival was 8am. This is a lot later then most. We do like the early ones better as we don't have to worry about him being hungry and thirsty since he can't hAve anything 3 hours or so before surgery.    We have also found out that having a later surgery start time makes the pre-op room very busy and hectic. We didn't get called back till 9:00am. Then we had to go through our normal hatred for the sleepy medicine and after the fight ended with a shot to make him very very sleepy! Even though this proces is far from perfect. At least he wasn't kicking and screaming when we left him! We left the pre-op room about 9:40. The surgery should be anywhere from an hour to 2 hours.  Hopefully he will wake up better then most times since it is a short surgery! 

Thanks to everyone for your support! We and especially brod needs it! We greatly appreciate all the thoughts and prayers! :)