***Clarification on last post***

The first picture on the last post was her "good" ear that cartilage was removed from. Those are dissolvable sutures. Here is a close up of the new ear! The dark section will heal. It is where Dr. Jones removed tissue to create the look of the canal, and hopefully where there will be a canal in the future!

Finished!

And we are finished! I cannot believe this was it! Both ears look great! They removed bandages, sutures, and packing. Then they rebandaged, leaving her good ear uncovered. We can remove everything for good on Saturday! I will post more pictures as the healing process begins!

And her mouth is blue because of a sucker :).

Sorry!

I completely apologize this post is so late. Since it was just me and Carolyn, I was a little preoccupied with the patient! She is doing great and we are back home. She was a lot more groggy this time, but actually it was probably for the best, because she got some great sleep in the car.

Dr. Jones said they were able to graft skin from the back of the ear instead of the groin, so that was great news! I also got to meet a very sweet family in the waiting room that was about to have their second stage completed! I'm praying everything went well for them!

For now Carolyn has on her "earmuffs" since both ears are wrapped, and we are doing lots of resting. Post-op is 12/26! Can't wait to see Dr. Jones' work once again!

In the OR

Carolyn went back about 830 EST. I got to walk back with her and she was all smiles! Partially due to meds of course, but also because she is a pro at this by now! Dr. Jones said this surgery typically lasts 3 1/2 hours. They will "pin" back her left ear and use that cartilage to make the tragus on the right (the bump in the front of the ear). They will also take a very small skin graft from her groin. Carolyn said "they are taking stuff from all over my body!" And they really are piecing everything together! She will not have a canal, but they do remove some tissue and along with the shadow from the tragus, it will look like there is one. Eventually we will go see Dr. Kesser in VA and hopefully he will be able to restore hearing in that ear! But that will be another journey :)..... We are taking a little surgery break for now!

I will update as soon as she is out!

Can't believe it is here!

The last reconstructive surgery is here! This has been a tough year for this tough girl, and we are so thankful it is winding down. Although I think we are going to miss the many Atlanta vacations! Today we went to Legoland and had a great time! Carolyn got to sing a little karaoke, ride some rides, see a 3d Lego movie, shoot some evil pirate legomen, and build a life size Lego castle!

Now it's time for bed, since I just set my alarm for 4:30 :)

Updated pictures by request!

I tend to show pictures of the reveal and then... Life goes on... And I COMPLETELY forget to add new pictures to the blog to show how the ear changes as the swelling goes down. So I will try to keep this updated with new pictures. It is also nice being able to look back myself and show Carolyn the progress. Here are a couple taken tonight, and you can definitely see how it is taking shape! It was difficult getting her to stand still for a close up, so excuse the fuzziness!!

Officially two ears!!!

We removed the bandages this morning!! Words cannot express my amazement and gratitude!!

Sooooo....

Sorry I fell through with the "tons of pics" I promised! We got to Dr. Jones office this morning and when they started to remove the stitches/packing behind it we had a bit of an emotional breakdown. I did get one picture though, but do remember there is a lot of swelling and it is a lot further from her head than it will be after healing. She is rebandaged and we get to remove those and take a REAL bath Friday night!! I am so excited! And i promise to post lots of pics after that!! Then Monday we will go back to Atlanta for another follow-up!

Aquarium pictures

Dinner and dessert!

We had such a fun night! We went to a great place for dinner, Steamhouse lounge, because Carolyn requested seafood. We sat outside and they had a cute little fountain the kids played in. After that we went to Cafe Intermezzo for dessert and had NUTELLA cheesecake! It was heavenly!! I had it in January when we came to Atlanta for a girls trip and have been dreaming about it since!! We also had the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, which was divine as well!

On a side note.... Check out how Carolyn wakes up every morning! Little Amy Winehouse with that hairdo. And then back to Carolyn Merrill after a ton of Bumble and Bumble prep spray and tucking back into the bandage!!

Sorry the pics post out of order. If anyone knows how to change the order when using the blogger app on the iphone let me know! I am an amateur at this!

Post op weekend in ATL!

Carolyn is doing GREAT! The itching is driving her crazy and Benadryl doesn't seem to help, but no pain! We are back in Atlanta and this time are shakin' things up! Cowdery came along and Aunt Lauren happened to be here for the AU game, so she came over to meet us for the night! We are looking forward to a good dinner out tonight and lots of fun tomorrow at the aquarium and Ikea!

Home and Settled

We are home and all settled in. Cowdery is back, Carolyn is in the bed, and I am about to join her! It's been a LONG day :). I'm am excited to get back to normal, and let the healing begin. She has complained of a lot of itching already, Dr. Jones said that is very common especially in this stage. We gave her a little Benadryl so hopefully that will keep it under control.

Bandages won't come off until post-op on Tuesday, and I will post lots of pics then. I was going to put one of the skin graft site up, but it really just looks like a bloody bandage, so thought I might spare you that for now :).

Off to bed now, and thanks for all your prayers through another surgery!! Good night!!

Dothan bound!

Man! They move fast!! We are already on the way home! Carolyn feels much better and we are about to stop at chick fil a because she is hungry! She just had a full dose of pain meds, so I am hoping that after she has a full belly she will be able to get some good sleep on the way home! The rain and the soothing sounds of talk radio should help too :).

The first pic is when she first came out to recovery. The frog is from Dr. Jones, which he gave her before she went back. Notice that "Hoppy" had a procedure as well. How cute is that?

Out!

Dr. Jones just came out to talk to us. He said everything went well and she is waking up a little in post-op now. They put in about 30 stitches (Carolyn will not be happy about that) and there will be more swelling with this surgery. He said that some of the detail will be lost for some time but will resurface when the swelling goes down. We can't wait to see her! Should only be about 15 more minutes!!

She's back....

And the waiting begins...

Ready for tomorrow

We are ready for bed and hopefully will get a good nights sleep since we have to be at the hospital at 5:30Est... 4:30 our time :). Carolyn is so excited about this one because they will lift it away from her head, which means she will be able to put her hair behind her ear!!! Before we started this reconstruction process, my sister said she wouldn't only be gaining an ear, but also a hand because all she ever did was hold her hair out of her face... Haha!

Surgery will begin at 7:30 est and will be approximately 3-3 1/2 hours. They will take a skin graft from the back side of her hip, cut the ear away from the head and place the skin behind it. I had to draw her panty line on her backside tonight with a sharpie, so that was a great source of amusement for her. She also couldn't get over the fact that Dr. Jones said "butt" at our pre-op appointment. She even had to call Cowdery to tell him. He must not know that is a bad word :).

Off to sleep and I will post updates in the morning! I can't believe we are already on round 3!!

Please send up some prayers for Carolyn tonight and in the morning!

Earrings!!!

Thanks to our sweet friend Sadie, Carolyn is wearing her first pair of earrings!!! They may be stick on, but they are just as sparkly as the real deal!! What a thoughtful gift!!

2 down 2 to go

Well, we are half way through! It's so crazy how quickly this year, that I have been so excited about/so dreading, is flying by. Here are pics from the latest one! Not to be redundant, but I really cannot comprehend the skill of this surgeon. He is so amazing! I will post more pics in about a week when it starts healing more. The spot in the front was where there was a skin tag that was part of her little ear. There were a couple of small stitches but one was stuck to the bandage when they took it off. Actually the stitch removal turned out to be worse than the surgery. She would not allow the ENT to touch her. Since the sutures were so tiny and there were so many they put her to sleep to do it....which means more time at the hospital :). But everything turned out great!

On the way home!!

We are already on the way home!! She did great in surgery and waking up! We just got in the car to head back. She said she wants to be lazy when she gets home and for us to make sure Cowdery doesn't knock her down! No complaints of pain yet so let's hope it stays that way at least until she is comfortably in her bed!

In surgery...

She went back about 830EST so we only have about another hour... Hopefully a little less. At this surgery center they let me dress down and go back to the OR with her until she fell asleep from the gas. She won't remember it though because of the versed they gave her before hand. She was being hilarious! You can tell in the pic below how cracked out she looks! Now C.K. And I are just sitting and waiting, ready for the second step to be over!