Emma: Tubes Surgery

Back in December 2015 Emma got her first ear infection. Since then she has had an ear infection each month leading up to May 2016 which means six ear infections in six months so the pediatrician referred us to an ENT. Each infection we were put on antibiotics and it would get better and then it would come back within a couple of days. I'm not 100% convinced that it ever actually went away.

Anyways, we had her ENT visit on May 6th, right after her 9 month well visit. He agreed that she needed tubes and we scheduled the surgery for May 17th.

She couldn't have any solid food after midnight, no breastmilk after 3:30 am and no water after 4:30 am. I woke her up at 3:00 to nurse and then at 5:45 we just transferred her to her car seat and headed out. She stayed asleep until we had to take her out to be weighed. We had to be there at 6:30 am and she wasn't scheduled to have her surgery until 7:30 am.

She was actually in a pretty good mood considering she hadn't eaten in 4 hours. I was able to hold her for a while, but then Bobby had to take over since me holding her just made her upset since she couldn't nurse. 

They took her back right after 7:30 am and we got to see her again at 8 am. Coming out of the anesthesia she was really fussy but once we started nursing it calmed her down and she dozed on and off for about 30 minutes. Everything went really well. The doctor did say that she had a double ear infection so he drained the puss and to expect a lot of drainage. We were discharged at 8:30 am.

 She was in really good spirits the whole ride home and she loved her little lion that she got out of the whole ordeal.

 We went home and ate breakfast and played for about an hour and then she passed out for four hours, which allowed me to get a nap as well. We had to do these antibiotic drops twice a day for 7 days in her ears. Those things were expensive, $200 for a tiny bottle.

We had her follow up on May 27th and she still had an ear infection, which we thought she might because her ears were still draining a lot. So she got another round of drops, this time for 10 days, and the doctor was nice enough to give us a sample so we didn't have to spend another $200. She also got an oral antibiotic for 10 days to make sure we got rid of it.

Because she still had an ear infection at her post-op check up we had to do another one on June 9th. On the 9th she still had fluid in her right ear so we had to do three more days of drops. So after several months of constant ear infections she was finally well on June 12th. But, two weeks later her right ear started to drain again and sure enough she had another ear infection in her right ear. Six more days of drops and another oral antibiotic later and as of July 8th she seems to be infection free. I am really hoping we are over the days of ear infections but who knows what going back to daycare will bring in August.