Jonah's upcoming surgery

I've  realized that I should let you all know a little bit about what's going on with Jonah.  Last November when doing a hearing evaluation (which was part of starting speech therapy for a stutter and some pronunciation problems) he failed his hearing test in his right ear.  The tech said that his ear was swollen and he had an infection which is probably why he failed his test.  She said I should just go see his pediatrician and have her treat it.  No big deal.  So we did. About 10 days after he finished his antibiotics he was having some crazy drainage and I could see some nasty white stuff practically closing off his ear canal.  We went to the insta-care and told her Jonah's history. (His surgery last year when he had tonsils and adenoids taken out, and tubes put in both his ears. and since his surgery he's had about 4 infections, sometimes with symptoms and sometimes without). She said that ear infections without symptoms are very strange.  She was about to just write me another prescription for another anti-biotic, when she said "you know what, my husband is the ENT (ear, nose, and throat doctor) on base, let me call him and see what he thinks"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (can you hear the angels singing at the awesomeness of this woman? Who I remind you works at the insta-care. The place where they don't know you and usually just care about getting you out of there as fast as possible?)

Anyway, we finally were able to meet with the ENT on base and he found that Jonah has a cholesteatoma growing in his ear. Which is a cyst-like skin growth that should not be growing in his ear.  The doctor said that to a regular doctor it can look just like an ear infection (which explains doctor's telling us "by the way it looks like Jonah has an ear infection, even though he has no fever, or pain, or any symptoms at all") and it's really hard to know what a cholesteatoma is, let alone diagnose it is unless you've had the 5 years extra schooling and practice in ears that an ENT gets.

Anyway, they are going to have to remove it surgically, but when-we still don't know.  We had to wait 3 weeks for a CAT Scan, then another week for the results.

From the results of the CAT Scan, it's larger then he thought and his down into his mastoid bone (the bone right behind the ear) and with Jonah being so young, he referred us to an ENT surgeon  in Atlanta who specializes in Ears and pediatrics. So by the time we got the referral (2 weeks) and called for an appointment, we won't be seen by that Dr. until the first week of April.

So we're just waiting for that appointment and hoping that we can get this taken care of as soon as possible, but it will probably be the end of April before the surgery is actually done.  And there will also be a follow-up surgery 6 months later to make sure that all the cholesteatoma is gone.  In the meantime, Jonah is just fine.  He isn't in any pain or anything, He can't really hear out of his right ear, so that causes a little frustration on his and my part-it's hard to know if he can't hear me or is ignoring me.  He also repeats stuff a lot because he doesn't hear me answer or respond to him (he thinks I'm ignoring him) but sometimes (if I'm on his left side) it's just fine.

So, I'll keep you updated.