Time for the Second (well, technically the third, but who's counting) Go-Round in the Saga of Zane

Once again, here's the Mother-of-the-Year reporting in for duty! You'll be impressed to know that writing an update about Zane's surgery as been on my to-do list since...well, since last August. Wow. I even impress myself! :/

The good news is that I'll save you the mindless rambling that usually par-for-the-course in Eva World and get to the point! Hold it together, people.

The short version of this infamous saga is that Zane had an overall great year recovery-wise, and only ever heard, "Things are looking good," every time we went in for check-ups. That whole "no news is good news" really held up this past year. The ear continued to shrink down as it should, there were no more extrusions, and the ear canal held up beautifully. Having said that, there were some "setbacks," or things that didn't quite turn out as we'd hoped. One of the most obvious things is that the ears aren't the same height on Zane's head...it's not a huge deal (especially when his hair is longer) because, let's be honest, HE HAS AN EAR NOW WHERE THERE WAS NONE! I try to remind myself of that when I catch myself wishing they'd been able to match those up better. In case you have forgotten, we knew going in that the ears wouldn't be the same height because they needed to use the tissue/blood supply from his old ear, formally and affectionately known as the "nub." :) But again, I'm greedy and find myself wishing for things that don't really matter!

There were some issues that we could address, however, and that's what we're doing now. Today...right now...as we speak...my bad. 

The new ear lobe didn't quite work out as they'd hoped. It just didn't "shrink up" or form as it should have. Secondly, Dr. Owen deliberately hadn't created a tragus on the new ear, knowing he'd add it later once we saw how Zane's ear would respond. Next, the skin graft from behind his left ear continued to grow hair and, since it's on the front side of his new ear, we want to deal with that for Z, if possible. Another issue is where they stitched up that skin graft/left ear area, it didn't "pop back out" as anticipated...so it looks like he traded one ear for the another since his left ear was basically "pinned back." 

On another note, Dr. Hansen has been assessing the inner ear/canal for the past year and said it just couldn't look better! On paper, he should be hearing fully by now. So he determined it must be an issue with the hearing bones themselves. 

Still with me?!? Maybe covering a full year of Zane in one blog post was a bit much...yet here we are. Again...my bad. So once again, my favorite little man is under the knife, as we speak. We'd hoped to have this surgery and subsequent recovery over and done with before the start of the new school year, but that wasn't meant to be. So he will start another school year with the beloved pink foam and plastic bubble head wrap. 

*insert profound sarcasm and disgust face* 

The plan is simple...at least from the perspective of the medical team. It's pretty profound to the likes of most of us...ok maybe just me. 

Dr. Owen will borrow cartilage from the left ear to fix the right ear lobe and create the tragus. He will take more skin grafts from the groin area to cover the new areas...just adding to that impressive scar he got the last time. He will do electrolosist on the hairy patch, and he'll untether that left ear. Dr. Hansen will open up the ear drum and scope out the situation with those 3 bones to see what's to be done. It could be any number of issues that they might discover once inside. one or multiple bones might be missing, they might be there but are fractured, or they may simply be misplaced. If it's any of those issues, they'll fix it...and the final result will be Zane will be hearing surround sound before you know it!!! WOW...how incredible would that be?!? So basically...NBD, as the kids say.
 Funny story...Dr. Hansen encouraged Zane to make a bet with the anesthesiologist..."bet you $10 that I can count to 10 before you get me to sleep!"...and then told him to count super fast. So he did. And the dude took him up on it. Couple things to note: Zane has been training. Working his game. Putting in the time. This is the big time. And let me tell you, if Mr Doctor Man doesn't pay up, they're gonna have one unhappy little patient. Or, I should say, Dr. Hansen will be the one paying up. Because I can assure you, SOMEONE will be paying up. 

We will be updating (for real...relax) once he's out of surgery. Stay tuned and once again, we are so very thankful for your prayers!