This past week has been what I would call a Medical Week for the Graver family. It started on Tuesday afternoon as week took Kyle to the E.N.T. (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor to see if he was going to need ear tubes since he seems to continuously get ear infections. We had actually tried everything under the sun to get the ear infections to stop as we ideally didn’t want to do the surgery. We tried 3 different antibiotics, soy milk, no dairy and chiropractic care, but nothing seemed to stop them. The ENT doctor checked him out and said he was definitely a candidate as normally if a kid gets about 6 infections in year, that is qualifying. Well, Kyle has had 6-7 in the last 6 months alone. The doctor was actually very nice, so if you want his name and number, let me know.
Since Kyle had just gotten done with yet another ear infection, now was the perfect time to do the surgery since it was in between infections. Luckily for us, Kyle was able to get scheduled for surgery on Thursday. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go to the surgery as I had an important meeting at work, basically the Virtual Company Meeting, but Barbie was there to keep the little guy company. The surgery takes about 15 minutes total, so he doesn’t have to stay under anesthesia very long which is very important for young kids. The doctor said everything went great, but that he had a lot of fluid built up in there, so he probably would have had another infection in a day or two, which means it is good we got him in so soon.
If you don’t know what the surgery entails, it is basically this. Your ear has an outer ear, basically where you stick a Q-Tip, then there is the ear drum which separates the middle ear and the outer ear. The skin inside the middle ear is like the skin inside your nose, basically it is moist. This moisture can build up, and it is supposed to drain down your Eustachian tube, which is connected to the back of your throat. Unfortunately, some kids’ Eustachian tube is very small and more parrallel than slanted down. Therefore, the fluid doesn’t drain, and eventually builds up inside the middle ear. This fluid is full of protein, so bacteria eventually finds it since protein is food for bacteria. Once this happens, you’ve got an ear infection. What the surgery does is slice a tiny hole in your ear drum and put a millimeter length tube in there which allows air to get in the middle ear and dry it out, and thus prevent infections. Eventually the tube falls out, so it is not a permanent solution, but hopefully by the time this happens, the Eustachian tube is larger and more slanted so the middle ear can drain on its own.
After the surgery, Kyle was definitely more tired than normal, but since then he has been perfectly normal. He also hears better now that the fluid is not blocking things, and we have noticed this since he stops and listens at higher pitched music now, almost as if he hadn’t heard this before. Since it was a year of living like this for him, his speech development may be a little slower than most kids as he couldn’t hear everything correctly before, but by the time he is 2 it shouldn’t be a problem. Other than that, Kyle is doing great.

As if one of our kids wasn’t enough, we also got to deal with Kymba. On Tuesday morning we woke up to find bits of wood hacked up from Kymba. Obviously, this was concerning since we didn’t want it puncturing her abdomen and cause internal bleeding or anything. So, we took her into the doctor and he said everything looked fine, but wanted to run some blood tests to make sure there was no poisoning or anything. We also didn’t mind since we wanted her blood tested anyways to test for a thyroid issue. At Kymba’s yearly appointment we found out she had gained 20 pounds in the last year. So, I decided to put her on a diet and start exercising her more than her normal routine. Well, 3-4 weeks later, she had gained another 5 lbs., so I had a suspicion something was wrong and the blood work would confirm things.
The next day (Wednesday) the Vet called to confirm she did have a HypoThyroid and that it had started to affect the liver, although nothing major and nothing that couldn’t be corrected with some simple meds. To give you an idea, a dog’s metabolic rate should be b/t 1-4, and Kymba’s was about a .5. So, she was burning fat/energy at about 50% of the minimum. This is both a good and bad result. It means we hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but it means Kymba will be on medication for the rest of her life to keep her metabolism at the right amount. The Vet said she should start to lose weight in about a month, so it means she will get some more energy (as if that is possible) and will be much more suited for our runs. I’m just glad that we caught it relatively soon as a German Shepherd being overweight is really bad for their hips later on in life.

As you can see, it’s been a medical week for the Graver family, although I am happy to report that Barbie and I seem to be in good health.