Three Months Post Microtia Repair

Ben was swimming a lot during the brief Indian Summer we had in early October, and around the week of his birthday in mid-October, we started to notice the outside of his ear looking a little strange, as if the skin was having an allergic reaction to something.  Then, on Monday morning (October 18) I noticed a ton of blood had clotted up in his ear.

I took him in to see Dr. Lewin for the first appointment on Wednesday morning, October 20.  On Wednesdays, Dr. Lewin works out of the Cedar Sinai Towers on 3rd Street with other ear doctors, including an ENT named Dr. Liu.

 Dr. Lewin was distressed about how the external ear skin looked - saying she had never seen an ear that started out so perfect for so long have keloids develop this late in the game.  But she said to focus on what was happening inside of his ear first, and she asked Dr. Liu if he could take a look at Ben's ear. 


Dr. Liu was great with Ben - who doesn't eactly like for strangers to touch his ear and particularly his ear canal.  Dr. Liu said there was a ton of goop in his ear and he stuck a long metal straw down Ben's ear and suctioned the goop out.  It made very loud slurping sounds, so Ben was a little squirmish and not particularly thrilled, but he liked the idea of having buggers removed from his ear.  He said that the problem was just an external ear problem (not middle or inner ear) and that just to be extra cautious, he was prescribing antibiotics and to see him in 10 days.

Before leaving, Dr. Lewin showed us what she did with another patient who developed keloids.  They surgically removed them and then radiated the spot so that keloids did not re-develop.  She said it worked well.  Of course, those are two things I want to not expose Ben to - so I'm not thinking about it for now.

Finally, Dr. Liu said that we'd probably be just fine to go ahead with the atresia repair revision on November 17 but to check back with him in 10 days.