Bilateral Ear Tubes

{May 25th}

Braxton has had 4 ear infections in the last 6 weeks.

4 double infections... right in a row. 

We have basically just made it a point to head right into the urgent care as soon as 10 days of antibiotics is up and sure enough, he always has another infection (or none of the 4 antibiotics he's been on have cleared it up in the first place).

He seems to have a really high tolerance for pain, because besides the occasional ear pulling, he has been really happy lately.

They bumped up his cleft surgery from October to August due to the fluid in his ears and they put tubes in then as part of the normal procedure.  I have been feeling really uncomfortable with the constant infections lately and felt like he needed tubes put in ASAP.  I mentioned to the ENT nurse last week that I wanted his ENT to put tubes right away and to have him call us back to talk about it.  After expecting resistance, I was surprised when he agreed.  His surgery scheduler called and they happened to have a cancellation open for Friday. 

The waiting line to get checked in was the worst part, but everything else went great!
All of the nurses and his anesthesiologist were wonderful!  I was a little nervous Braxton would be a total wreck since he wasn't able to eat or drink anything that morning, but he had woken up crying at 3am (from his TWO teeth that are popping through at the same time) so we gave him some pedialyte then.  It apparently held him over OK until they took him back around 7:45am because he was happy and playful.  The total procedure took about 15 minutes and we went back as he was waking up about 25 minutes from when we handed him off.  He was super fussy as he woke up but chugged a bottle and a half more of pedialyte and cheered right up after that.

 {so cute in his hospital jammies}

I'm pretty sure our ENT is the worst communicator... but I just tell myself that just means he is the best specialist.  In the 30 seconds he spent with us afterwards he said everything went great.  He suctioned the fluid out and they were both pretty infected again.  In fact, his right ear was so infected his ear drum was about to burst.  UMM...WHAT!?

I have never been so glad to have followed my instincts and push to have the tubes put in right away.

(also so thankful to get into surgery so soon and not have to wait 3 more weeks)

We were discharged within an hour and he had a normal day after that. 

So relieved to cross one big problem off our list as the summer is starting!