Ripp’s Story, part 3—Surgery Day

Today was the big day! Thanks to the amazingly generous financial support of so many, Ripp did not have to wait any longer for his ear surgery. He is still in surgery as I write this (6 PM on Wednesday, August 1), but we wanted to share what information we have. His day started with being sedated for a CT scan, which gave the surgical team the best look yet at how extensive his ear damage was. This test showed that the canals of both ears were very bad (no surprise there, that was obvious from just looking), but only the middle ear (also called the bulla) on the right side was also obviously damaged. Things might look different once they could actually see first-hand, but it gave them what they needed for planning purposes, which was an indication of which side to start on. That way, if Ripp was to have a bad reaction part way through, they could stop after the first ear. Interestingly, learning that the right ear was the worst of the two agrees with what I had seen in some of his behavior. When he was feeling his worst, his balance was off, which led to staggering in circles to the right (see part 1 of his story). But both ears obviously need surgery.

Because of other surgeries scheduled for today, Ripp’s surgery didn’t begin until about 1 PM. We were originally told it would be a 3 hour procedure, but at 6 PM we heard that the team had just finished the first ear! Absolutely NOTHING is wrong, and they are now moving on to his second ear. The delay was caused by the extensive calcification, which made it more difficult than expected to remove the damaged tissue (think of trying to delicately slice through bone). The team discussed stopping for the day because Ripp had been under anesthesia so long, but all his vitals are extremely strong and steady, so they decided it was OK to proceed to the second ear. We think this is a GREAT idea, because it means he won’t have to go through all this again. It ALSO means that we don’t have as much news as we thought. I would love to be reporting that he’s out of surgery and fully alert, but we aren’t quite there yet. We know Ripp is in many people’s thoughts today, which thrills me to no end! Please keep the positive thoughts flowing his way; we’ll post more news as soon as we have it.