15 Hours Later...

To say this has been a long day would be the understatement of the decade. However, I promised to post an update as soon as possible so I'm sharing what I can while it's fresh in my mind.

We just spent some time with Dr. Owens, as he walked us through the long surgery. He actually showed us pictures of each stage of the surgery. Yes, I asked him to take them...gotta have pics for scrapping...right, Renee?!? They were pretty incredible to see, although I don't think Cori will be thrilled to see what they did to Zane's sweet haircut! :/ Neither will Zane, for that matter. But I digress...

In spite of the increased length in time, the surgery went very well, and Dr. Owens was very pleased. Zane did make the situation a little tricky as his Golden Har blood vessels weren't located where they should've been! Never a dull moment with this guy. 

Dr. Owens was buzzing through the breakdown and sort of glided over Dr. Hanson's portion of the surgery. I had to stop him in order to clarify...excuse me, did you say he created/enlarged the ear canal?!? Why would he mess with that if Zane has no hearing on that side? WAIT...WHAT?!?

You best be sitting down. Turns out...God shows his handiwork even after 15-hour surgeries, amid all the doubts and fears of some of us...ahem...ok...that was me. So...here it is...Zane's ear canal was in the wrong place, clogged over with dead skin and scar tissue, BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY CONNECTED TO THE EAR DRUM! What the world. Dr. Hanson enlarged the canal and cleaned it all out, but it looks good on paper. Now we just wait. It will be a good chunk of time before we know if he can hear on that side...fluid must drain out, swelling go down, etc. But still, I am so overwhelmed by God...mostly that in spite of my own faith struggles throughout these surgeries with our China babies, He still has got it all planned out and is in constant control. 

We have a long road to recovery...they'll take out drainage tubes tomorrow and make sure he's ok with nausea and stomach issues. Then we will have a pretty significant dressing of multiple layers for a couple weeks. The first compression layer will come off in 3 days, the rest will follow. We will not see the ear for a couple weeks and, even then, Zane will wear the dressing for roughly a month. Then continue to wear it at bedtime for another 2 months. But, like I said, Dr. Owens said it all went well. The nub was enough to create the ear lobe. They had to do 3 skin grafts...2 for the ear, 1 for the enlarged ear canal. He wasn't able to create the tragus but can do that easily with a future procedure once the ear is good-to-go! 

It's been an hour since the surgery ended, and we are still waiting to see Zane, but we are rejoicing in this phenomenal news and knew you would be too. Maybe I can even get those pictures and share them with you sometime...well, those of you with a strong stomach! :)