Hayden's ear surgery

Since the day 1 I feel like Hayden's ears have been little trouble makers.  Ear infections galore, surgery for tubes, then no water in ears for 3 years, then surgery to get tubes out, 2 perforated ear drums, no water in ears for another year, and surprise surprise yet another surgery. Hopefully this is our last! Of course it was a big one.

It all started with Hayden's perforated ear drums. We knew there was a chance when he got his tubes removed that it could happen, but they had to be removed, and Ron and I assumed that they would heal themselves. Well we got lucky with the left ear, but not so much with the right. We kept hoping the right ear would heal, but at his last ENT appointment the doctor said that the only way to fix it would be surgery.

Hayden had only 40% of his ear drum on his right side which caused major hearing loss in that ear. Ron and I felt pretty bad. We didn't know until the doctor told us that he couldnt hear well with his right ear, so of course we booked the surgery that day. It was important to us to get it fixed right away with school just starting and all.

Monday was the big day. The surgery took about 2 hours. The doctors went in and made a small incision behind is right ear. They cut and took a skin graft and then went inside his ear, grafted and formed that skin into new ear drum for him. 

All went well and we are about 5 days post surgery. We have to change the dressing every day, but other than that the recovery process has been very easy on our little guy. He had a hard time on day one and had to be on quite a bit of pain meds, but he had been a real trooper since and only complains of pain if it accidentally gets bumped.

We will do a hearing test in the next couple of weeks when we go back for a post op check up. Hopefully the graft took and Hayden will have his hearing restored!!

We are so grateful for modern medicine. Without it our little man wouldn't be able to hardly hear in that ear.

All ready and waiting for the nurses to take him back.

Post op: He wasn't so happy that he was a lot of pain and this surgery on his ears wasn't as easy as his last. Poor guy.

It took ice, Tylenol, IV pain meds and children's Motrin to get this boy's pain under control, and then after that he was pretty dang loopy. It was pretty funny and way sad at the same time.

Once we got home grace thought of he only way she knew to help make brother feel better. A big snuggle. He loved it, and it warmed my mommy heart.

His little Picasso ear is growing on me and I think it is quite cute. He has enjoyed picking his band aid colors and matching them with colors of the day at school.  Just a few more days and hopefully is ears will be normal.

He is super excited to go swimming and take a real bath as he has never in his life had his head under water or his ears submerged.