CI Surgery now June 3rd

Next Friday is definitely better than a month from now, but it took some effort to get it all lined out yesterday. The doctor's office was able to obtain an updated preauthorization from Medicaid, but then I had to get after Blue Cross to get that preauthorization changed from the 7th to the 3rd before we could put our claim on next Friday. Thanks to efforts by my HR department at work, the doctor's office had the necessary documents in hand by 3:00 yesterday afternoon. So, we are a little calmer now on that front.

The next big question is whether or not the surgery will be on Tessa's right or left ear. We started new ear drops last night that we will be doing over the next several days, then we will go in next Wednesday afternoon for a re-check. If the doctor is successful at unclogging Tessa's tube at that time, then we should be good to go for the right CI on Friday. If there is still infection and/or he is unable to unclog her tube, we will be forced to change the surgery to her left ear.

There are a few reasons why we have chosen to do Tessa's right ear first. When it comes to the hearing part of the brain, the right side actually crosses to the left. So even though it would be another year before Tessa would get her left CI (had planned to do it next summer), having her right one will begin to train the left side of her brain to hear as well. If we are forced to do the left ear first, there may be more of an urgency to get the right CI done before next summer. Also, Tessa has some laziness in her right eye that we have been hoping will begin to correct itself by getting her right CI implanted first. The hope was that she would begin to turn to sound on the right side therefore strengthening her right eye. If we do the left one first, we may have to look into patching her right eye to try and get her to gain strength in it before too much more time passes. Since Tessa seems to have more strength in her left eye, it also tends to affect the way she positions her head. She works so hard on her head control and we just really want to make sure that she doesn't develop too much of a habit in positioning her head and neck, so the hope is that getting the CI on the right side first would help balance that out as well.

In summary, please be praying that Tessa's right ear is free and clear of any infection at her re-check appointment next Wednesday at 2:40. This would definitely be best case scenario!

~Whitney