No hearing - No surgery - No problem

E is my little trooper - being born with an ear deformity called Microcia hasn't slowed him down. We have come to a point in his short little life where it was time for him to have his Kitty Scan (CAT scan). The Dr's needed to have these pictures so they could see if there was any possibility of him hearing.

So, we had been going back and forth with the Dr's about Evan's ability to sit still through a Kitty Scan and that we were being encouraged to have him asleep for the procedure. Eventually, I scheduled it in November and when we arrived, the Dr suggested bade on his size, age and obvious maturity for his age, the we give it a try without sleepy meds but they would be available if he became too wiggly or nervous. Well - my little trooper went with Daddy to the big Kitty Scan room and no more than 5 minutes later he returned with big smiles - similar to the picture above :), stating that he stayed awake the whole time! OMG - I've never had a more proud moment!

The end of November, E and I went to the Dr to talk about the pictures. As we suspected the outer bones were deformed - obviously. The Dr said that the middle ear and inner ear photos were great but he couldn't see everything he wanted to and the next step was exploratory surgery but there were risks in E's case. His facial nerve had grown abnormally around the bones and there is significant risk of facial paralysis should they knick the nerve...well - that's NEVER going to happen!!! Many children with Microcia have facial deformities associated with Microcia - E does not and we will be keeping it that way.

I had his teacher conference this week and he's doing great! His skills in reading and math are at 2ND grade levels and he has numerous coping skills when he thinks he may have missed hearing something and is not afraid to ask the teacher to repeat. He has a lot of friends and not once has his teacher(s) heard him being made fun of. His speech is very good considering and he practices R sounds 3 times a week with Mrs. R.

We will investigate prosthetic ears in the future but for now, we love E just the way he is and he is thrilled that he's done with Dr's for awhile!