Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.  We are home and things went pretty well.  He was able to do most of the procedure by dilating her ear canal which was good and means she only has a small incision behind her ear from where he grafted some fascia - he also grafted some skin from within the ear canal.   She had started to develop a cholesteatoma, but luckily it had not started to erode or damage the middle ear bones.  He grafted her very large tympanic membrane perforation and cleaned out all of the cholesteatoma. 

The hard part will be the recovery.  We really need the graft to “take” so her hearing will improve.  Her recovery is 2-4-6; 2 weeks of no bending, lifting or straining; 4 weeks of no head upside down, bumps, rolling or contact sports; and 6 weeks of no water activity (careful bathing with vaseline cotton ball in the ear).   This will be interesting with my very busy and active girl!  He also examined her left ear under sedation and that perforation is also enlarging, so when we get through with this one and get a graft that takes; we get to start over on the other side.  About 6 weeks after each operation we will assess her earing and continue to examine the need for amplification (hearing aids).

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers.   Here are some pics of Elly in recovery, her bunny helped her feel better!   She isn’t liking her packing and head gear much either…  

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Tuesday, April 29th Elly is having a Tympanoplasty, also called eardrum repair, to reconstruct a perforated tympanic membrane (eardrum) in her right ear. They will do the procedure post auricular, from an incision behind her ear. They will inspect her middle ear space and if there is no evidence of cholesteatoma or other ear disease, the edges of the perforation are cleaned and a tissue graft is placed under the perforation. Usually, the tissue graft is the outer layer of the temporalis muscle (the muscle used for chewing that you can feel in the side of your head).

Please keep Elly and Dr. Levinson, her ENT, in your prayers. The procedure is scheduled to occur at 9:30 a.m. CST.

We have known of her bilateral ear drum perforations for a year now and we were hoping not to have to repair them until she was a little older. At a recent ENT check, it was discovered that her right perforation (previously the smaller one) had grown exponentially and become marginal. The perforations have decreased her hearing causing a conductive loss and she has a hearing aid for her left ear. A marginal perforation is more concerning because it is less likely to heal and often lead to acquired cholesteatomas. If untreated, a cholesteatoma can eat into the three small bones located in the middle ear, which can result in nerve deterioration, deafness, imbalance and vertigo.

I will update as soon as I can. Enjoy these photos of Elly with her “button” and keep her in your prayers.

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JIM LAVRAKAS / Anchorage Daily News

Gov. Sarah Palin was back at work Monday in Anchorage, holding a meeting on the proposed natural gas pipeline three days after giving birth to her fifth child.

Trig has Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality that affects a child’s intellectual and physical development, the governor confirmed.

“When we first heard, it was kind of confusing,” Palin, 44, said. She called the revelation “very, very challenging” and said she initially felt sad.

But the family has worked through that. Palin said she and Todd feel blessed and chosen by God. With a big family including four older kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Palin said, they will have lots of support for what’s ahead. In their eyes, she said, “he’s absolutely perfect.”

The oldest Palin kid, Track, is in the Army and texted his mother after learning the news with something to the effect of “This is just so cool — I finally got my brother.”

In a letter she e-mailed to relatives and close friends Friday after giving birth, Palin wrote, “Many people will express sympathy, but you don’t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.” She wrote it in the voice of and signed it as “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

“Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed-up world you live in down there on Earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome,” Palin wrote.

As for people who think a baby like Trig shouldn’t even be born, look around, the governor wrote. Who is perfect or even normal?

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Nascar driver David Ragan’s brother Adam happens to have Down syndrome. David and Adam have a wonderful relationship and are living proof that having a sibling with Down syndrome is a blessing!

No, that’s not Andy Taylor and Barney Fife next to the 1960 Ford Fairlane 500 — it’s David Ragan and brother Adam. More from ESPN here.

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