Tara's Ear Update

As much as I hate to do a post focusing on myself, there have been some very thoughtful people asking about the latest with my ear. On Wednesday I had my final surgery, hopefully. This surgery was to fuse the bones back together in my right ear drum so that my hearing would be restored. I still have bandages on and there's packing to hold everything together. It'll take about a week to know exactly how much hearing I have back.

For anyone who is completely lost I should probably tell the whole story. Right after Hannah was born I was having a lot of draining from my ear. (Sick, huh?) I went to an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist who suggested that I have tubes put in. After the tubes were in I was still having some problems, so the doctor suggested that I have another surgery to clean out my ear completely. It turned out that I had a growth in my ear, called a Cholesteatoma, that had begun to eat away at my ear drum and tissue within my ear. The doctor had removed the growth, which was the size of a silver dollar, and repaired the damage.

Then I became pregnant with our little Amelia. For some reason while I'm pregnant the side effects of the Cholesteatoma don't appear. About six weeks after having Amelia the draining was back. I went back to the doctor and he suggested that we do a CT scan to see if the growth had returned. The CT scan had confirmed that the growth had in fact come back.

In February I had another surgery. What was supposed to be a two hour out-patient procedure turned into six hours in the operating room, a night in the hospital, and a horrible two week recovery. The growth had pretty much taken up my entire ear canal. It had destroyed part of the bones in my ear drum, again, and was pushing against the membrane that separates the ear canal from the brain. If we hadn't had removed it when we did then it would have only been a matter of weeks before it would have been into my brain and caused some very serious damage. It did cause some side effects with my equilibrium. It takes just a second or two longer for me to balance when my focus changes quickly.

So, now we are back to the present. The surgery lasted four hours and I was able to come home that same day. The recovery has been so much better than last time. I've had very little pain and I've just been tired. The best part is that the doctor reported that there was no more growth and I should be able to have some if not most of my hearing back.

I just want to say thank you for all of your thoughts and concern. I especially want to say thank you to Jared for all of his endless love and support throughout this whole ordeal. I couldn't have done it without him. Thank you to Hannah for crying with me about "mommies big ouchee." Thank you to my mom for watching the kids when I've had doctor appointments and surgeries. I am so completely blessed to have such a wonderful support system around me. Through this whole trial I have gained such a better appreciation for the sense of hearing. I will never take for granted the precious sound of my little girl's laughter or their cries again. I am much more grateful for the sound of rain or the wind blowing through the trees. I want to express my gratitude to our Father In Heaven for these beautiful sounds and also for the peace and comfort that he has given me.

Thank you!