Thurday Doc Appts

When Kevin woke up yesterday morning he said that he felt much better than the previous few mornings, so I'm encouraged that he seems to feel a little better each day. I was correct in saying that the doctor appointments would be all he could handle yesterday. The 1st was at 9am at one location and the 2nd at 3pm at a different. He slept in between and then after for 5 hours straight after the 2nd one. Also, he's exhibiting symptoms of a head trauma victim which is that bright lights, loud shrill voices, too many inputs at once annoy him and after a time he just wants out of there. It's tough - but he did pretty well, I must say.

The ENT doc looked at Kevin's right ear which he had been complaining about, but has actually gotten steadily better. I brought the packet of written reports from the hosp, with descriptions of the findings from the CT scans so he looked at those (Kevin's skull fracture is right above that ear). He cleaned out a little wax to get a good look at the ear drum and Kevin could hear a little better already. The ear drum looks just fine. There's a little bit of dried blood and debris on the ear drum which he said would be painful if he tried to clean, so he wants us to put drops of hydrogen peroxide in it twice a day for a week. Then he sent Kevin off with an audiologist to test his inner ear. She put him in a sound proof room and tested both ears. We then spoke with the doc who said that those came out great! Both ears are hearing at the same level which is in the normal range for a 20 year old male. When she spoke words for Kevin to repeat he heard her at 0 decibles and with 100% accuracy which is excellent. So doc expects Kevin to fully recover - NO DAMAGE TO INNER OR OUTER RIGHT EAR!

The Orthopedic doc looked at his clavicle in the afternoon. He had all of the CT scan images on his computer right there in the office and scanned the written reports that I had brought in. We were looking at the area on Kevin's upper left chest, right under his chin. It had been very painful the night he came home from the hosp, but was feeling better by Thurs. The doc showed us that there is only a separation of where clavicle meets breast bone - the ligaments are stretched, but it will just heal like that. Kevin will have a little bump or rise, no big deal - it won't bother him at all in the future and there's nothing to worry about there. The doc then noticed on the CT images another area on his right clavicle that wasn't mentioned in the reports. The tip where it attaches out near the shoulder socket was chipped a little and it, too, has a separation. Kevin doesn't feel any pain there at all, couldn't tell that it's also damaged. The doc sent him off for x-rays - 2 standing up, one with a weight in that hand gently pulling downward and one without the weight. He wanted to know if the separation gets worse with the weight - but it doesn't at all! So he said that's good. Kevin doesn't need to do anything with that except not lift anything over 10 pounds (25 with both hands) for 6 weeks till bone heals.
LEFT AND RIGHT CLAVICLES SLIGHTLY INJURED