Porter cleared to return home to Nevada

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, March 4, 2004 | 9:55 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., will return to Nevada today for the first time since December. Doctors say the ear problem that kept him off airplanes for the past three months is now stable enough for him to fly.

Porter, 48, checked into a hospital shortly after he returned to Washington from spending Thanksgiving in Nevada. A virus in his right ear caused some moderate hearing loss and was a painful "annoyance" for him.

Doctors at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in a Washington suburb repaired a "fistula," a narrow passage formed by disease or injury, between Porter's inner and middle ear in January, a day before the fund-raiser in Las Vegas with Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I am not used to not being at home," Porter said. "Now I can continue the schedule I did prior to my surgery."

Doctors think air pressure from his frequent flights back to Nevada on top of a cold he had were part of the problem, he said, but they have yet to pinpoint a cause for him. Porter said he plans to fly back almost every weekend.

Porter was fitted for has a temporary hearing aid Monday and will receive a permanent one in about two months, he said. He said the surgery was successful. He is still getting used to the hearing aid, but has no problems doing his job.

He said his left ear is fine. An MRI in December that ruled out any other problems, he said.

He said he has received dozens of letters from people with similar hearing problems expressing support and showing concern.

In the time Porter was stuck in Washington, his staff set up video-conferencing so he could work with people in Nevada.

"None of the technology replaces actually being home though," he said.

His first trip back was scheduled around a full slate of meetings, including a congressional field hearing on nuclear waste transportation to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. He is the vice chairman of the Railroad Subcommittee that called the hearing.

Porter was "very excited to go home" not just for the hearing, but to see his family. His wife, Laurie, has traveled back and forth to Washington throughout the ordeal but they have been apart too.

"I still have Christmas presents at home," he said.

Porter spent the holidays in Washington and was unable to make a trip to Iraq scheduled for Dec. 19.