how is Nora's Ear?

I know several of you are probably wondering "how is Nora's ear???" and so I took some photos to share with you. We went back to Dr. Hah's Tuesday for our first post surgery follow up and he was very pleased with how it looked. He used the suction and a q-tip and cleaned it up some - more aggressive with it than I had been but not too aggressive to cause Nora any pain.

I did look up some information and will give you a link to a page that describes what Nora had done. In the above photo you see the stitched in the front where they went in and took some of her perichondrium to use as a graph to cover the hole in her eardrum inside her ear.

"...Soon blood vessels grow and spread around the edges of the cartilage, also known as perichondrium. This results in the cells within perichondrium to differentiate into osteoblasts which work to create a thin layer around the eardrum..."

and here is a look of behind her ear lobe. Still some bruising but not nearly as bad as it was. We are hoping that with time her ear will start to lay flat against her head again. It sticks out from her head a lot right now but thankfully SHE hasn't noticed any difference yet and as far as we know she hasn't been teased at school about it.

Dr Hah gave us a new prescription for drops to put in 3xs/day and continue with the antibiotic and ointment on the incisions twice a day. Nora thinks it's real funny when we call it her "OINK"ment :) and it helps to get her mind off of the uncomfortable feeling of the q-tip rubbing against the stitches - she's too busy laughing at me to notice ;)

I'm happy to report that she's had no pain since the day we came home from the surgery and is doing great. :) We continue to pray that her hearing will be restored in this ear and that the graph will take and be a success! Thanks to all of our family and friends for their prayers for Nora during all of this. ;)

We go back next Wednesday 11/11 for another check-up.