Immediately we began seeing an audiologist and speech therapist. Noah began to go through hearing tests every three to six months not long after birth and he began speech therapy three times a week. Noah was born with bilateral microtia and atresia on the left ear. He had no hearing on the left side and only a mild hearing loss on the right side. He wears a hearing aid and with the aid he has perfect hearing. We stopped going to speech therapy when Noah started JrK at CMDS.
Around 4 months, we had already seen an urologist for the hyperspadia and we found that Noah did not have this condition…thank goodness! However he needed to be circumcised as well as needing a hernia repaired. So we prepared for our first surgery. Noah made it through the surgery with no complications, but after surgery when we were in recovery Noah would not wake up from the anesthesia. He would go into such a deep sleep that he would stop breathing and we would have to call out his name and shake him order to wake him up enough to take a breath. So…what was supposed to be an outpatient surgery, ended up being a couple of days in the hospital. It was such a scary experience!
The second set of surgeries, were to correct his club feet. Noah had already worn progressive casts to attempt to straighten his feet, but that did not seem to be helping. Therefore, we scheduled his surgeries. He would go through 3 surgeries. The first consisted of lengthening the tendons and ligaments in the foot as well as pins were inserted to hold the bones into position. His feet were in casts coming out of surgery, but they still appeared to be in the same position as before the surgery. A few weeks later we were back in the hospital to have his feet recast and placed in the proper position. The next time we came back to the hospital, they removed the pins and recast his feet. Then finally after the giving his feet enough time to heal, we scheduled his appointment to go have the casts removed for the final time. He wore a brace at night for about a year in order to make sure his feet maintained the appropriate positioning. He doesn’t remember anything about this surgery and the casting and it was an interesting experience when we looked back at his baby pictures of him in casts and look at the scars on his feet.
We have begun one last set of surgeries to correct the birth defects. Ear Reconstruction! This past April, Noah had his first surgery with Dr. Burt Brent. It is amazing how wonderful the new ear looks and it is only in beginning stage. Noah is so excited…he asked this morning, “When are we going back to California?”
