Surgery on Left Ear

The surgery was done on Friday. It was such a LONG day. We had to be at the hospital at 10 am to register and then wait in the lobby on 2nd floor until they were ready. Then they called us back to a room the size of our walk in closet (may not have been that small, but it felt like it). They just did height, weight (45 lbs now), and the normal questionaire stuff. They talked to Evan and us about the surgery. He was a little apprehensive. When it was time to go to the surgery room, we walked down there with him. We told him, he would lay down and sleep. He didn't want to go with the nurse, so she had to pick him up. Then we had to go back to the lobby to wait some more. The surgery was sposed to take 1 to 1 1/2 hour. After 2 hours, I was getting worried, so I asked the lady at the registration desk. The nurse told her that she thought that they were getting close to finishing up.

After 3 hours, the dr called us into a small room, about the size of a normal closet (not kidding). He explained why it took 3 hours. He said it was interesting a few times, challenging a few times, and he called it the "case of the year", a few times. He did not find what he was expecting.

I'm going to try to explain it, but I'm not a dr., especailly not an ENT surgeon, so I didn't understand a lot of what he said. From what I did understand... He went into the ear canal. There was this bone taking up 2/3 of the ear canal and ear wax taking up the other 1/3. He thought he would have to drill through the bone, or chip away at it. As he started to poke at it, it broke off. Mission accomplished there. Then he went into the ear canal to see what was going on in there. Evan has all the parts, and they seem to all be functioning... but they weren't in the right places and some things were crisscrossed that weren't sposed to be and it was just a little bit odd. So he had to move things so they would be alligned with the ear canal and do a little bit of restructuring. The Dr. was very surprised and proud. All in all, surgery went well.

The Dr. said that with the parts not exactly in the correct locations and not alligned normally, it'll be interesting to see if everything is really working properly. We are hopefull that he will have 100% hearing restored in that ear after his 2 week check up. At that appointment, the dr. will take out the excess gauz, and then we can re check his hearing in the left ear.

The Dr. left the room, and we had to go back to the lobby, until they called us back to Evan's room in the "Same Day Surgery" area. They finally called us back after another hour.

Hospital time is so slow. I had thought I'd be out of there by 3-4 pm, but the surgery wasn't even done until 3, and they didn't call us back until 4.

When they called us back, he was kind of out of it. He was very groggy from the extra anesthesia and had vomited a few times already. He looked at us and then went back to sleep. I tried to find cartoons for him to watch, but the tv had limited channels, and he didn't seem to be all that interested in watching anything anyway.

Before the surgery, they had dressed up Evan's bear. The bear was wearing a surgical mask, hat, and shoes. It was so cute!

The Dr. had checked in on Evan a few times, he instructed us and the nurses to push the gauze back in the ear canal if it began to come loose. The nurse poked at it a couple of times with a cotton ball, but was scared to touch it. Told me I could use a pen when we got home. The thought of using a pen was a little scary, didn't seem too sterile either.

More about recovery later...