- October 2005 - Ben's birthday
- January 2006 - Ben begins Early Start Program - home visits with Infant Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teachers (Ben is 3 months old)
- October 2006 - Attended Let Them Hear Conference in Palo Alto (Ben is one year old)
- August 2007 - Ben (finally) receives BAHA (Ben is one year and 10 months)
- September 2008 - Ben starts preschool and wears BAHA (Ben is two years and eleven months)
- September 2008 - Initial visit to Dr. Lewin (Ben is almost three years old)
- May 2010 - CAT Scan with Dr. Roberson (Ben is four years and seven months)
- September 2010 - Ben starts a language immersion kindergarten, wears BAHA to school (Ben is four years and eleven months)
- April 2011 - Atresia Repair with Dr. Roberson (Ben is five years and six months)
- July 2011 - Microtia Repair with Dr. Lewin (Ben is five years and nine months)
- November 2011 - Atresia Repair Revision with Dr. Roberson (Ben is six years and 1 month)
If you think you're going to do surgery in the following year and you work for a company that offers health insurance options, you need to sign up for the best insurance the prior fall/winter. So in preparation for the possibility of going ahead with the surgery in 2011, I signed up for the PPO plan that seemed to be the best fit for coverage for the surgery.
By the end of 2010, we were starting to think about timing in 2011. We wanted to schedule the surgery that had a longer recovery period (the microtia repair) at the beginning of the summer, which would mean that we had to schedule the atresia repair earlier in the year. There are a lot of additional timing elements to consider - such as Spring break, etc. Also, the calendar for surgery does fill up, so you need to take that into consideration. So at the end of 2010, we emailed Cheryl Medina at Dr. Roberson's office and asked to be considered for surgery either at the beginning of 2011 or around Spring Break.
