Ear Tube Surgery

Yesterday Sofia had tubes (grommets) put in her ears. We arrived at the hospital at the required time of 7am. Then Sofia and I waited in her room for two and a half hours. As unlikely as it sounds this did have an upside. It made me very frustrated which took my attention off my nervousness! Anyway, after the long wait the nurse came in and gave Sofia some syrup to drink that would halp calm her down. She was doing surprisingly well though. I think having already been through the syrup and gas when she had her adenoids out helped. I wasn't expected much from the syrup since when she had the syrup for her adenoids it didn't seem to do anything. This time was different. They must have given her a high dosage. At first there was no change but within thirty minutes she started to laugh randomly. Then she started saying things like, "you have three eyes" and "I can't lift my head it is glued to the pillow", all of these comments were followed up with pure giggles. I kept trying to get her to just relax and go to sleep but she couldn't stop the giggles. She had me laughing even when I was trying to be serious. This lasted about fifteen minutes and then the nurses came in and wheeled her out of the room. It was very weird to watch her be taken away. Quite a powerless feeling. I just prayed that my baby would come back to me better than ever. They had told me she would be back between thirty minutes to an hour and that I should go get some coffee or something. I made my way to the cafeteria only to find out that it was closed. I then went and waited in the lobby until it was time to head back upstairs. Since it took me so long to find my way through the maze of the hospital I started to rush because I didn't want Sofia to be in her room all alone. I arrived at her toom expecting her to be there but she wasn't. I thought it strange but sat down to wait. As it past the hour mark I started to really worry. I had just given myself another five minutes to wait before I tracked down the nurse to find out if something was wrong when at about an hour and ten minutes after they took her they wheeled her back into her room. She still had her eyes closed which also surprised me. When she had her adenoids out she was in the surgery for twenty-five minutes and was fully awake by one hour. After speaking with many people who had tubes in their kids ears I assumed it would be the same this time. I was wrong. It took about another 45 minutes for Sofia to work her way out of the anesthesia induced crying. If you have watched your children come out of anesthesia you know what I mean...it is a very particular sounding cry. Once she broke free of this then we had a lot of coughing up of mucus and blood which wasn't very pleasant and was quite painful for her since her throat was already so sore. Then she finally went to sleep. She was exhausted. While she slept she had an IV drip of saline (I think) and two doses of antibiotics. The surgeon finally came in to tell us about the surgery. She did speak English but it wasn't great. When she started with, "I have something to tell you.", Jason and I had our hearts in our throats. It isn't as bad as we imagined but it does mean more doctor visits. She told us that she put the tubes in and removed her adenoids again (apparently they had grown back). She also said that when they went in to her left ear the fluid behind her ear drum wasn't really fluid but rather a thick glue that was difficult to get out of her ear. With that removed they also found a cyst called a Cholesteatoma. It is a cyst caused by a long standing retraction pocket of the eardrum into the middle ear. It can be a serious condition that if left untreated can cause deafness and facial parylisis. So, they removed the cyst. Because she had the cyst though she will need to be checked regularly to make sure the cyst does not come back. I'm not sure what regularly means so hopefully it isn't a weekly check. If the tubes are able to work properly and keep her ear drained then hopefully she won't have any new cysts form. This did explain the extended time she spent in the operating room and why is took her all day and night to really be herself again. She is home with me today to rest and I think she will be back at school tomorrow. Her hearing is already much better and will take some time for her to adjust to. She can hear me when I whisper now which is amazing. She also complained about Ali moving around too much last night and waking her up. I can't believe she is hearing the creaking of Ali's bed!