Brandon went again today to see Dr. Schwartz, the ear specialist. There was some slight improvement in the facial muscle control, but pretty minimal. The doctor took a good look at Brandon's inner ear with a microscope. He said it looked like the perforated ear drum had closed up and that was good. He talked to us about the stapedius muscle: an ear muscle that is controlled by the facial nerve, and it protects the ear from really loud sounds. Because the nerve is not working correctly, Brandon is very sensitive to loud noises. In our house, loud noises are a pretty regular occurence.
Brandon also had a hearing test today to assess his hearing ability. Amazingly, his left ear was found to be on the low end of normal hearing. Praise the Lord! It should continue to get better as Brandon continues to recover.
Brandon still has ringing in the ear as well. The doctor believes that this will also get better over time.
He wants to see Brandon again in a month to see how he's doing, check his face response, and test the hearing again.
**Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry**
Eric S. Andersen
Project Manager
Technology Planning and Deployment Group
Battelle Northwest
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
PO Box 999
ms: K6-05
Richland, WA 99352
ph 509.375.2735
cell 509.528.6300
fax 509.375.6736
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