Katie's Ear Surgery

 Katie had surgery on January 9th.  She had problems with her Eustachian tube (Eustachian tube dysfunction) where the pressure in her Eustachian tube made her ear drum retract.  The ear drum was laying on the bones in her ear, which caused both the ear drum and the bones to deteriorate.  She had reconstructive surgery to repair both.  They used cartilage from behind her ear and used it to rebuild her bones of hearing and reinforce her ear drum.  Sounds pretty awful, huh?  I wasn't looking forward to it.  But at the same time, I'm so amazed and grateful they can do things like this!!  She was starting to lose her hearing and they think that her hearing will recover completely from this surgery.  Pretty amazing they can rebuild a bone and even more amazing they can fix her hearing!!  I tried to pretend that I wasn't worried about it since we've been through like 8 sets of tubes for different kids.  But honestly, I was pretty nervous.  It was a 3 hour surgery which is a whole lot longer than for something as "easy" as tubes.  She was in surgery for a little over 3 hours.  She woke up ok, but was not happy, obviously.  I asked her what hurt and amazingly she said her throat.  We got her an orange slushie and she loved it.  But I learned later that her throat was really beat up due to the breathing tube she had.  She didn't talk for 3 days!  Here she is right after surgery, telling me her throat hurts.  The nurse asked her to rate her pain by identifying which "pain face" was most like what she felt.  She rated it an 8 and just from observing her, I totally believe it.  She was pretty miserable!

She was in an observation area, different from the regular recovery room because they wanted to keep her longer.  She stayed there for about 5 hours and then we got to go home.  It was about a 12 hour stay total.  

 They told us to keep her home from school for a full week and she needed that full week!  Anna was so worried about her.  She even sent me a text from school on the day of surgery (she had permission from her teacher).  She didn't leave Katie's side for days.  I took this picture without either of them knowing.  I love how close they are.

After about 4 days, she started to feel better and even smile!  Then she started to laugh.  The first time she started laughing, I noticed the whole family stopped to listen to her and everyone was smiling.  It was so nice to have the real Katie back!

And now after more than a week of surgery, she's doing SO much better!  They took her steri-strips off at our last appointment.  And then I saw the huuuge incision behind her ear.  It goes the the whole length of her ear.  And I learned then that her ear is packed (I don't know what it's packed with), but it has to stay packed for a month while everything heals!  And she can't do any strenuous activity for an entire month either.  See, I was worried for a reason.  But I didn't realize how involved this procedure was.  Poor Katie!  She was so brave and tough though.  She amazes me!  I'm glad it's over, and Katie is even more glad it's over!