John's Ear Surgery

This morning John had tubes implanted (for lack of a better word) in his eardrums. We were at the surgical center for about two hours, but the actual procedure was very quick.

He actually has me to thank for this problem. I had tubes in my ears twice when I was a kid (I was a bit older than John, actually) and we're told it's a hereditary thing.

We arrived and checked in, then sat in the waiting room for about 10 minutes, then they took us back to a pre-op area where we put John in his hospital gown and waited for about 30 minutes. One of the nurses rolled a television over and we watched a couple Curious George episodes. The anesthesiologist came and spoke with us briefly, several nurses stopped by, and Dr. Hellstrom (John's ENT and the one who actually performed the procedure) talked with us, too.

Details of the procedure...
It's basically pretty simple. John had a build-up of fluid behind his eardrums that was causing him discomfort and some hearing trouble, so they needed to implant (that word sounds better) tubes in his eardrums. They put John to sleep with a gas mask (no needles used at all, thank goodness!) and then made a small incision in each eardrum, drained the fluid, and put in a small tube that the eardrums heal around, holding it in place. You can see in the photo that the tubes are very small and are shaped sort of like an hour glass. These tubes will allow excess fluid to drain out preventing future ear infections and will help equalize the air pressure around his eardrums. The tubes in the photo are actually one of the two sets of tubes that I had in my ears when I was a kid. Yes, my parents kept them.

Finally Nurse Libby came and took John back to the OR and we waited in the "Family Conference Room." What seemed like 5 minutes later another nurse came and took us to the pediatric recovery room and a minute later they brought John in. He was groggy and very upset, but he did very well. The surgery went very well and there were no complications. We held him for a while and then put him back in his pajamas and headed home. He slept most of the way home. Now he's on antibiotics and we have these drops that we have to drop into his ears every day.

The hardest part of all this was not being able to give John anything to eat or drink this morning before the surgery. After we got home he started eating like a horse, is completely back to his energetic self (more so, actually), and seems to be gravitating toward toys that make noise!