Ear Tubes

Today Molly went to Primary Children's Hospital to get tubes in her ears. In the last 2 weeks, she's had an appointment with Dr. Havlik and then Dr. Child, an ear, nose, and throat specialist. She's actually been pretty pleasant, but both doctors agreed her ears are still infected and that she should probably get tubes in her ears. Even though it's a relatively simple and short procedure, it's treated as a full-blown operation at Primary's and seems like quite and ordeal to prepare for.We had to wait until Thursday afternoon to get the surgery schedule. No formula or food after midnight. No water or juice after 5:00 a.m. We were to be at Primary's by 6:30 Friday morning and her procedure would be done at 8:00. James and I juggled our work schedules. He was able to take the day off, except that he had one appointment he couldn't miss in the morning. I would, of course, go with Molly, but then really needed to get back to school.

Molly and I made it to the hospital around 6:40 a.m. The first waiting room was already packed. We got a light-up pager like you would at a restaurant and took our seat with all of the other little kids and nervous, tired parents. Some kids were sad, some were grumpy, others were fine. Molly was fine. We watched the fish tank and all the other kids. Our pager had to go off twice before we could move to the next room.

The next room looked like a regular doctor's office room and we waited there, changed into fancy hospital pajamas, talked with an MA and then a Nurse Practitioner. Molly was still doing great!

The next room was waiting room #2. We met back up with several of the kids who had been in waiting room #1, all wearing the same fancy jammies. A couple of other kids were getting ear tubes, one was getting something removed from her eye/forehead and the doctor came out to the waiting room and marked the left side of her eyebrow with a sharpie. During this time, James met up with us and Molly got super grumpy. We blew bubbles, we colored, and we wandered. I think she was starving and tired and didn't want to be there anymore. Both the anesthesiologist and Dr. Child came out to talk with us, then we walked down a long hallway, handed Molly over to the anesthesiologist and walked back the other way to waiting room #3.

The whole procedure . . . takes 12 minutes.

Pretty soon, we were called out of waiting room #3. Molly's ear tubes were in and it was time to go find our child, our screaming child. The anesthesiologist (I just like seeing if I can spell that) told us earlier that most little kids either wake up still sleepy or they wake up feisty. Molly . . . well I guess you could call it feisty! She SCREAMED. She was so mad at the world. She kicked. She yelled. She was covered in snot, slobber, and tears. She wanted nothing to do with the water they were trying to give her in a bottle. She wanted nothing to do with me, or James, or the bed, or anything. Who knows what she wanted. We sang songs, we looked at different things, we emptied some toys out of the diaper bag, we tried a regular bottle, we picked her up, we laid her down, she flipped around . . . she just kept screaming!!

After a very traumatic 20-30 minutes, a nice little hospital worker lady came and brought Molly a noisy car toy with a horn to honk. Crying immediately stopped. She played with it for a while. She settled down enough to drink her bottle, change her clothes, and off we went. James said she had a 3 hour nap at home and an otherwise pleasant day!

The procedure went fine. She has drops for 3 days. No direct pressurized water in the ears. Follow up with Dr. Child in 3 weeks. She should be a happy camper from now on!

The End!