Ear update

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about our options regarding Katie and Jenny's microtia.  You can read about it at this blog entry .

This past Friday we met with the plastic surgeon, he is younger then me.  As my Katie always ask people "How old are you?"  He is wonderful with the kids, he knew how to make them feel at ease and he never missed a beat.  He took many different pictures of their face and ear.  He informed me that he works side by side with the surgeon we saw at the beginning of the month.  He asked if I(we) decided if we were going to do 1. drill hole, 2. implant, 3. nothing.  He said he needed to know which one of these options before he could move forward.  When I told him we didn't know yet, that we wanted to see what he has to say, we had some ideas from the first surgeon already.  This surgeon then started with

option number 1.  If we decided to drill hole, this would consist 3-5 surgeries, and up to 5 ribs depending one which child or we could do the prosthetic ear.  Dave and I have already ruled out the prosthetic ear, we feel there is to many downsides to it, the surgeon agreed with that.

Option number 2 Have the implant put in, giving a better chance forKatie them to hear.  They will have to have a similar device as cochlear implants people.  They would have to wear a processor and have some sort of ear to hold the processor which then goes back to option 1 too.

Option number 3  Do nothing at this time (more then likely not an option)

Now some other options within the first 2 options

In Option one and two:  We can decide not to do the drill hole, and just make the ear for costmetic reasons which wouldn't be cover under surgery.

We can do the implant and the ear but no drill hole, insurance should cover it.  The implant has some downfalls too.

Doing the drill hole and rib cartilage, we have been told by both surgerons that the ear won't look exactly like the other ear, that it won't have all the fine features to it, that a lot also depends on the tissue and rib of the person the surgery is being performed on.  Katie is the better candiate for the outer ear surgery, Jenny is the better candiate for the inner ear surgery.

This surgeron Dr. W. was very blank point with me,  he didn't beat around the bush at all, he told me how he felt with each options and why, he explained all the up and downside on them all.  He prefers the rib surgery the best.  He explained the different surgery, how long the hospital stay would be, which ones are more painful, which ones the girls will be more restricted with during recovery, even down to how much hair he would have to shave off for each surgery.  I was with him for one hour.  Even though there was so much informations and different scenerios, I felt good about the information he presented.  He also told me to do my research on line, to look at before and after pictures of people that have had rib cartiledge ear surgery.  He stressed that when he makes the cuts for the ribs and skin draft, he tries to cut them so that the scars won't show up much. 

Dave and I are still discussing all the options and each detail, we are looking for guidance and prayers too.  I know when we make the decision we will make it for what we think our girls would want.  Jenny still isn't saying yet if she wants the surgery or not, but she is wanting to hear everything first.  Katie is still wanting the surgery eventhough we feel she not thinking it all through and she is more focused on having her ear pierce.

Part of what makes this decision hard, is it isn't a life threatening thing that needs to be taken care of now, but emotional and self esteem wise, it is affecting Katie on how she viewing herself.  This is something we and they will have to live with for many years or the rest of their lives.

Katie and Jenny don't know what it is like to hear out of that ear, they don't know anything different.  Us folks that have hearing in both ears, we know what it is like to be able to hear from both directions.  They have to turn their head sometimes so their good ear is where the source of sound is coming.

As for second opionon.  I am not sure if we are going to see one.  We have friends that has a son that had surgery similar to one of options, we have seen what the surgery can do, he had a different surgeon then what we have.  We also have other friends who have seen different surgeons (not any of the ones we or our other friends have seen) and in talking to them this weekend, I got a lot more information from both of our surgeons then they have with their different surgeons, they were amazed that I had this much information. So now we talk, pray and listen.