New artwork for the living room

Picked up an awesome painting at the NE Minneapolis Art-a-Whirl:

Eardrum Reconstruction Surgery

Yesterday Wynn had reconstructive surgery done on her right eardrum.

Think of an eardrum like a sandwich. The bread would be the layers of skin tissue facing out to the air and in toward the little bones that transmit sound to the inner ear's nerve center. The middle of the sandwich is a structural layer that still flexes but has to be strong enough to carry the inner and outer layers.

This year's exams showed that - for both ears - the middle structural layer had lost its bloodflow a long time ago due to infection - probably when Wynn was just a baby - and that layer has become brittle and calcified. No wonder it had holes, and no wonder why 2011's operation (more of a "patch job" on her left side) didn't succeed.

The operation this time was more extensive than the 2011 procedure; essentially what was done yesterday was a total re-build of her right-side eardrum. They took a small sheet of muscle tissue from behind her right ear to use as the structural layer, pulled back the healthy pieces of what was left of the inner and outer "bread" layers, cleared away the calcified structural tissue, tied in the 'donor' muscle tissue, and layered the "bread" layers onto the new structural base.

Wynn was in the O.R. for three hours, exactly as scheduled. In all, we left our house at 9:45 am and got back home at 7 pm. 

The surgeon was very happy with how everything went; there were no complications and she had no issues with anesthesia. Both Ann and I were in the recovery room as she woke up, and she was in much better spirits than she was after last year's pharangeal flap operation.

She was a little barfy last night, mostly due to mucus in her belly (now that spring has finally come to Minnesota, the pollen is thick ... and she gets the hayfever...).  But she slept well through the night and had a good breakfast and lunch so far today. (It's just after 3 pm & she's asking how soon dinner will happen!)

Photo time:

The hospital pajamas were absurdly large.  She decided to wear the bottoms as a pantsuit.

In the recovery room - once awake she was ready for popsicles!  She downed two in the fastest time I'd ever seen...

After the rush of adrenaline from coming up out of surgery, she was really tired. She took a nice nap in the post-op room. (I nodded off a little bit myself while Ann went across the street to the hospital cafeteria for dinner.)

If they offer you a wagon ride to the car, and you're still pretty tired, you take it!  Nibbler got to stay with her through the entire operation; what a brave little plushie. (He helped Ann through her operations too back in 2001!)

New bike!

Wynn's old bike was (finally) too small for her, so this weekend we ordered up a new one from Erik's Bike Shop. This one should hold her for a few years ... training wheels for now, but the hope is that they'll be off by the end of summer.

The State Fairgrounds is a great place to practice!

Set the old bike at the end of the driveway ... gone in an hour

"A Passage to China" at the Mall of America

For six years now in April, the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN has hosted "A Passage to China," a 2-day festival put on by Minnesota's Chinese Heritage Foundation and local newspaper China Insight. This year's festival involved over 45 organizations & businesses - some there to sell merchandise, others to talk about programs they put on, and others to grow membership.

There were demonstrations of cooking, dance, martial arts, singing, painting, calligraphy, and many other crafts - kids received a "passport" and would get a stamp at each booth they visited, then redeem the stamps for a necklace or bracelet.

It was great to see so many Asian faces and hear so much Mandarin in one place here in Minnesota - and it was heartening to see so many non-Asian faces watching the performances with interest and walking through the booths with their kids!

Wynn had a fine time, of course. Now that she's a little bit older and able to speak in Chinese for herself, she got a lot more out of this year's presentation:

Having the Starbucks in the background makes it more authentically Chinese ;)

Moulding-your-own Terracotta Warriors

Little Warriors for sale...  we're holding out to get a life-size one for the garden in the backyard

We stayed for a number of vocal performances and dance numbers

Paper-cutting, a traditional folk craft from Shaanxi province - it can get amazingly intricate.  (She did not pay any attention to the American Girl shop just beyond :)  )

Finally able to get out and walk!

Now that the sun doesn't set until 7:30, and it's not freezing anymore, we're finally able to get out after dinner and walk around!

Back to our usual stomping grounds at the State Fair ... the snowpiles are shrinking quickly! Soon the grass will be green and Wynn will be practicing her bike riding in the empty lots!

Hearing Aid Calibration check-up

Wynn had her hearing aids checked this morning - everything is working as intended. No additional work on the devices is needed.

She's really had no issues with the hearing aids - no stigma she's talked about from school, and she's been very responsible about cleaning them & changing batteries when needed. It's just another piece of technology to her, like her uncle's iPad or my eyeglasses...

Now Hear This!

Wynn's now using hearing aids - the molds are her own choice of colors (red, yellow, and orange mixed together.) The microphone & electronics sit behind the outer ear, with a little tube to carry the audio through the mold into her ear canal.

The aids themselves are loaners from the Lions' Club for a 6-month period. We'll know one way or another whether she'll need hearing aids permanently well before then, however.

Next steps - a follow-up visit and recalibration if needed in about two weeks.  Then, later in May, we'll shoot for surgery to restore her right eardrum.  If that's successful, she won't need the aids.