Monday, January 26, 2009

Surgery: 5 PM Update (Bear & Lauren recovering fine)


I was hoping to post something earlier but I haven't been able to until now. At about 12:30, Dr. Roberson came and spoke with us. He said they were finished and told us she did very well. There was no complications during the surgery and he said it went as planned. We asked him specifically about the facial nerve and middle ear bones. The facial nerve, he said, was a non-issue. He said he never encountered the nerve during the surgery and it seemed it was far enough away from what they were doing to not cause a problem.


As for the middle ear bones, he said they were very deformed. As is the case in most Atresia patients. However, he said it was all in one piece and seemed to be very stable in it's connection. He also said it has good movement and he feels it should be able to function normally despite it's deformity. The placement of the ear drum and skin graft for the canal went very smoothly. Although he is unable to tell us for sure if she will be able to have improved hearing, he feels the chances are good that she may have good improvement. We won't know for sure until some time has passed. They won't test her hearing again for two months.


Lauren did so well before, during, and after the surgery. All the staff wanted to stop by and see the pretty red head they had been hearing about. She was pretty groggy coming out of the anesthesia. We had to sit with her for an hour before she was able to gain more consciousness. After that, she was awake enough for the hospital to discharge her. We drove back to the hotel and put her in bed. However, within thirty minutes, she pulled off the dressing and bandages around her head. We were told this had to stay on until Wednesday. Needless to say, we weren't ready to see her wounds just yet. We tried to put the bandages back in place but we were worried it wasn't correct. We called the doctor and told him what happened. He recommended us driving back over and they could wrap the bandages again. They did the re-wrap and we drove back to the hotel.


She is going to be pretty tired for the rest of the day into tomorrow, but she seems like she isn't in much pain. It has been a long day for all of us, so we will probably get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow is another recover day. I don't think we will go anywhere unless Lauren insists. We will be meeting with the Doctors on Wednesday and if everything checks out well, we will head for home in the afternoon. We hope this has helped keep everyone updated on her status and we thank all of you for checking it and to those that left supporting comments. Lauren especially thanks you.

4 comments:

Heather said...

So glad it went well! What a brave little beautiful girl!

Our Family said...

I am so happy to hear that everything overall went great. The picture of Becky and Lauren is very cute. I hope everything goes well as you prepare to come home. See you soon.

David Llewellyn said...

So glad to hear that it went well and that Lauren is doing fine. Just convince her to leave those bandages on :)

Best of luck and have a safe return trip home.

Dave Llewellyn.

Marcia Orr said...

Wow, what dramatic experience for all of you, but sounds like you made it through just fine. I wonder if they make some kind of parent pill to help with the worry and concern for a child going through what Lauren did. So glad that it's over and that everything went so well. Hope to see you soon.