Saturday, April 26, 2025

And like most 5-year olds, he loves to laugh, watch cartoons, and play with toys. Mom Cindy Stewart: “He is the world’s happiest little boy. He is just full of life. I love his innocence.”

But there’s one thing that sets him apart. James was born with a congenital condition on his right ear called microtia. Matthew Choi is a Plastic Surgeon at McMaster Children’s Hospital: “Microtia is a condition where a child is born without an ear or little remnants of an ear.”

This means James can’t hear out of his right ear. Dr. Choi: “It’s thought to be approximately 1 in 6,000 births.”

But that’s all beginning to change. Last month, he had the first of three surgeries to reconstruct his ear: “Is that what you wanted for Christmas? Yeah.”

The surgery was performed by Dr. James Bain at McMaster Children’s Hospital: “What that entailed was doing a rib graft where they take his bottom rib and form him a new ear.”

It was a surgery that made Cindy more nervous than her son.

Q: “Was mommy nervous? “Yuuup.”

But all went well.

Cindy: “He noticed right away that he had a new big ear. He’s just so happy about it. He wants to show everybody his new ear.”

And James is now on his way to having what most of us often take for granted.

Dr. Choi: “He would have close to normal hearing.”

“He wants to show the world that he has two big ears. You couldn’t ask for anything more than a happy child.”

Now James still has two more surgeries. The second surgery will be in about six months and that’s to further reconstruct the outer part of the ear. It’s purely aesthetic. And then the third and final surgery will happen in about a year. That’s to construct the ear canal. The Doctors said that should give him near normal hearing.