Robbie has been sick with ear infections a lot since January. A few weeks ago our pediatrician refered us to an ENT (ear nose throat doctor). The ENT recommended putting ear tubes in his ears. It's a very common, quick surgery (15 minutes). The ear tubes help liquids drain out of the ears, preventing infections. Robbie had the surgery yesterday and it was successfull.
We had to be at the surgical center (Bailey Square) at 6 am. They schedule the children's surgeries by age with the youngest children going first. Robbie was #2 on the list (the 2nd youngest that day). They do this because you aren't allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight before the surgery and the younger the child is the more difficult it is for them not to eat so they do them earlier. We spent about an hour filling out paperwork and talking to the nurse, anesthesiologist and doctor about what was going to happen. Then, we had to put Robbie in some funny looking hospital robe that was way too big and a nurse took him away (screaming his head off). He was gone for about 40 minutes.
They put him under anesthesia, the doctor spent about 15 minutes doing the surgery. He made a small cut in each ear and put a tube in. He put a somewhat larger tube in the right ear because that one seemed to be infected more in the past. Then, the nurses took him, woke him up and wheeled his hospital bed over to us. We were waiting for him in a small private waiting room that had some chairs and a tv. He was very upset when we saw him. The nurse said most children wake up very upset, even angry from the anasthesia.
We had to stay another half hour to make sure he was ok. We could give him some milk or juice to drink to see if he could keep it down. He drank a bottle, but was still very upset. At about 9 am (3 hours after we arrived), they released us. Robbie calmed down as soon as we got to the car and fell asleep once we started driving. At home he started playing and was just fine all day, though he did take an extra long nap in the afternoon. Today (the day after) he's acting fine.
The ear tubes should fall out on their own in 9-12 months as the ear grows. In the meantime we have to be carefull that he doesn't get his ears wet. We have to put some cotton balls in his ears whenever he has a bath or is in the swimming pool.
Hopefully this will help him stay healthy.
Posted by pjakobs at March 26, 2005 10:29 AM