Ear Tubes

Yesterday, my little guy, Parker, had to have surgery to have ear tubes put in. Since he was born, he has never been able to pass the hearing test. Believe me, when we left the hospital (when he was born) after failing the hearing test, I was scared to death that I might have a deaf baby. Thankfully, that was not the case. We have had countless tests done to make sure he can hear and after many hours and lots of money, they concluded it was just fluid behind his ear drums. Take this advice- if your child can't pass the hearing test, go straight to an ear doctor, not an audiologist. They waste your time and money on pointless tests when a doctor can just look in his ears and tell you exactly what is wrong. Anyways...since visiting with the ear doctor, we determined that if he still had fluid behind his ears around the age of 1 (that's the age where speech development begins), then we would get the tubes put in. We went to the doctor on Tuesday and both ears were still filled completely. If you don't know much about how your ears work (honestly, I didn't until all this happened) everybody has an eustachian tube behind their ear drum that allows the fluid to drain down to the back of your throat. Most adults tubes are slanted vertically and have a large enough opening for the fluid to drain easily. A baby's, however, is very small, and lays horizontally at first. If there is any swelling or it is not developed all the way, the fluid backs up behind the ear drum, not allowing the drum to vibrate when sound goes in, making it hard to hear. By putting in tubes, the fluid has a place to drain out of, allowing vibration, which allows a person to hear.

Here's a picture to help better explain what I just said.

Here's a picture of where they place the tube in the ear drum.

After visiting with the doctor, it just so happened that the very next day (yesterday) had an opening for the surgery. So, I went ahead and took it. We got up at 5:30am and left the house at 6am because we had to be at the hospital at 6:30. Parker was not allowed to eat anything past midnight of the night before. Thankfully, he wasn't too fussy when we first got there. We filled out all the paperwork and didn't have to wait very long (that's the nice part about being the first surgery of the day). We went back to the pre-op room and got Parker dressed in his gown-it was orange and he looked adorable in it. By this point, he was really tired and hungry, and he screamed any time a nurse came close to him. Halle was wonderful. She just colored and never once complained. I love her!!! They gave him a sedative to relax him a little bit right before going into surgery. They told us it would make him drowsy and tired. Well, it obviously had the reverse effect on Parker. He was spastic. He was crawling all over the place as fast as he could, darting here and there. I would turn my back for one minute and he would be out of sight. He didn't want anyone to pick him up or be put in the crib. It was actually quite hilarious because we thought he was going to be drowsy and snuggly with us and he definitely wasn't!!!! They took him into surgery right at 8am. He had to be put under for the surgery. We couldn't see him when that happened so we put all our trust in the doctor and anesthesiologist. The surgery only took about 10 minutes. I was able to go back to be with Parker when we was waking up from the anesthesia. He was horribly cranky which they say is very normal. I tried feeding him a bottle, but he was beside himself. I hated seeing him so upset. About 20 minutes later, we moved to post-op room #2. Brad and Halle were allowed to come back. He fell asleep in Brad's arms about 5 minutes later and about 1/2 hour after that we were free to go home. Really, we were only at the hospital for 3 hours total!!!

Thankfully, everything went really smoothly. We are hoping this will be the only set of tubes he will need. They are supposed to stay in for 10-12 months and will fall out on their own. Hopefully, by then, his eustachian tube will have matured enough to drain the fluid properly. If not, we will be back to have another set put in.