Day 3 – Sleepy…

Got back to the apartment late last night, pretty grumpy and very sleepy. I slept most of the night and had to take some pain medication. The pain is okay and the medication dos the job. I can start to hear a bit more, but the bandages blocks out a lot of sounds. Today im gonna stay inside the apartment and not do anything. Mostly sleep and focus on getting the anesthesia out of my body. It usually takes me two or three days to be feeling ‘normal’ again after a operation. The bandages is going to stay on until monday (5 days from surgery) – nice purple color right? 🙂 ( the color of royalty im told ) – Im not feeling very royal right now but the CEI sure did a great job.

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Day 2 – Surgery

Uh Im getting a bit nervous… I met with the nurses and got all prepared and ready for surgery, they informed me once agian about the procedure and took blood pressure and pulse. I also got a chance to chat a bit with Dr. Roberson before surgery, its really nice when the doctor understands you and is easy to talk to. He is really an amazing person. I felt safe and in good hands. The operation went really well. It turned out that my middle ear bones where better than expected and therefore Dr. Roberson upgraded me from a grade 8 to a grade 9 on the Jahrsdoerfer scale. This means that my chances of having normal hearing is up and about 95-100%. I also needed to have my ear elevated a bit to make it look more like the left one, and that was taken care of by Dr. Schendel. The bandages can’t come off until my next apointment so I cant see any reaults yet, nor can I hear that much on my right ear yet. But I can tell that there are sound coming in from my right side already. Im so excited.

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Day 1 – Post Surgery

First day of my journey towards hearing on my right ear.

Today I was at The California Ear Institute to have my pre-surgery talk with the doctors. I also needed a new Audiogram this where conducted at the same time. All my tests looks good and I’m ready for surgery tomorrow, Wednesday the 7/1-2015.

Yesterday I arrived at a small but very nice apartment in North Beach, San Francisco about a 40 minutes drive from Palo Alto and the Hospital. I’m here with my dad who will assist me post surgery and keeping me company for the first week. My stay is approximately three week because of the 3-4 post operation appointments and due to the risk of pressure to the new eardrum and ear canal during flying. So Ill be staying in San Francisco for a total of three weeks, 2 weeks by myself. My journey started about 5 years ago when I first started investigating the possibilities of reconstruction. In Denmark the national health system provides help for the outer ear reconstruction but the ear canal they cant do. There are simply no surgeons how can do this kind of surgery. But then the health system provides the option to be treated in another country. And that decision relies on the leading ENT. Unfortunately for me this person didn’t agree that this surgery would be a good idea for me. Although all test shows that my chances of getting normal hearing on my right ear is 80-100 %. I spend 5 years trying to convince the ENT to grant this surgery but at some point I gave up. I talked very much about this subject with my dad and he managed to help me with the economics and now the adventure begins.

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My personal blog intro

Hi there,

If your interested in my story on Microtia, Atresia repair, you’ve come to the right place.

Over the next couple of month I’ll post my story and my expirences when I go the USA to get my right ear canal reconstructed by Dr. Roberson at The Ear Institute in California.

In the menu above this post is link to some small videos I will make along the way. And you can use the menu on the right for navigation.

All the best,

Jakob