Ryan and his Surgeries

The reason I was in Sydney last week was for Ryan to have another surgery. When Ryan was born almost 16 years ago he was born with only one ear and his right jaw was smaller than the left. The conditions are called "microtia" of the ear which means "small ear", and "hemifacial microsomia" which means "small on one side of the face". This photo of Ryan was taken when he was about four and shows his little ear and small jaw really well.

After many trips to see specialists for tests ranging from hearing, CT scans, x-rays, photography etc it was concluded that he was completely deaf in his right ear, but has normal hearing in his left. There is no ear drum, hearing bones or even a hearing nerve present. There was no hope of reconstructing his hearing, but he gets by very well with only hearing from his left ear. There was concern from the specialists about spinal problems, growth problems and intellectual problems also, but Ryan has been very lucky to not have shown anything else was wrong.

The next step was to decided what to do about his jaw, so when he was six years old he had one of his ribs grafted into his jaw by the craniofacial surgeons at the New Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney. His latest surgery was to shorten this graft as it keeps growing as he grows and sends his jaw very crooked so that his teeth don't line up properly which makes eating difficult. He's had it shortened five times so far and the surgeons hope that it will stop growing once he stops growing which could be another five years yet.

When Ryan was ten years old he had two plastic reconstructive surgeries to reconstruct an ear for cosmetic reasons. We left this decision up to Ryan as to whether he wanted anything done about his "little ear", and he said yes he would. The plastic surgeon made an ear for Ryan with cartilage from behind his rib cage. It is quite remarkable what the surgeon achieved and Ryan was very happy with the result. He doesn't need any more surgeries on his ear, it's just the jaw which is giving him the trouble. He will also need a lot of orthodontic work done on his teeth once his jaw problems settle down.

I've lost count how many times we've travelled to Sydney to see the specialists with Ryan. It's more than a 900km round trip so I know the road there very well!! We consider ourselves very lucky though when we see lots of other children attending the hospital in Sydney and see what they have to deal with!

I Love IKEA!!

I was in Sydney from Thursday to Saturday last week so a trip to IKEA was called for. I have always loved their stuff for it's simplicity. I bought a set of bookcases for the office to store all Farmer Phil's farm related paraphernalia, some funky red bar stools for the kitchen, new cushion covers for the lounge, two glass salad bowls, two stainless steel cutlery sets, a light shade, some coir doormats, a stainless steel toilet brush holder, a stainless steel towel rail, and other bits and pieces. If I had a bigger vehicle there would have been a lot more come home with me!

Pool Work

Now that cropping has finished, Farmer Phil and I have some time to get the pool concreted around and then paved. Farmer Phil is very fussy with anything he does so this concreting job is going to take us some time to finish - the levels have to be correct to within a millimetre before he's happy to proceed! Farmer Phil is spraying the crops with weedicides in the morning and then we go out and do some concreting.

View From My Kitchen Window

This is the view from my kitchen window - a 60Ha paddock of Gregory wheat sown on the 8th of May. Farmer Phil and I finished sowing last Monday, and on Tuesday we received 34mm of rain - perfect!!! We've just had a very wet weekend with another 30mm of rain so the crops are just lapping up the moisture and growing nicely.

The Good Life!!

This is how Charlie spends each day - in blissful ignorance!

Video Camera

I've just worked out how to post videos from You Tube to my blog.

Ryan won the video camera at the NSW State Waterski Titles in April at Stoney Park and it has come in very handy for videoing the kids skiing and singing etc. This is a video of Ryan jumping. He only started to jump in November last year and has progressed very well.

YAHS Performance Night

YAHS had their Performance Night last night and Emma did two solo performances. There were students playing the flute, clarinet, violin, electric guitar and drums. There was also poetry reading, public speaking, a percussion group, the choir and of course the famous drum corp. Not bad for an "agricultural" high school!

YAHS Performance Night

New Guidance System

We've had Adam from Intersales Temora out to install a base station and equipment for us to use RTK (Real Time Kinematic) Guidance System for our seeding, spraying and harvesting operations.

We've been using the Trimble EZ-Guide 500 system with EZ-Steer for a few years but we decided to upgrade to an even more precise system.

Using the 2.5cm RTK automated steering system will increase our accuracy, efficiency and productivity, or so the experts tell us!

Home Improvements

The builders have just packed up their tools and left after building our new patio area over the past 4 days. It was built by Lifestyle Patios from Wagga and we couldn't be happier with the job they've done.

We still need to construct a deck for the entire area, so hopefully when we've finished cropping Farmer Phil and I can get stuck into finishing it off. We also need to pave around the pool. The pavers have been sitting waiting to be used for about 6 months now!

Building a new house in a paddock is a huge job and there seems to be a never-ending list of things to do! We've been here almost 9 years, so a few extra months to get most things completed won't kill me I guess!!!