Today, Caleb had his procedure done to insert tubes into his ears. He has had seriously recurrent ear infections since fall and we had had enough of putting the poor guy through round after round of antibiotics (we were up to 7!). He seems to always get ear infections! We're hoping this does the trick.
He was a trooper (at first) in the waiting room.
He tried out every chair ...
And happily watched cartoons...
Then they brought us back to what I guess I can call the "staging area" and he started to get a little antsy ... trying to figure out the most dangerous way to mount a stool possible...
And observing the other kids wearing the foot warming socks.
And, mostly, being MAD that we wouldn't feed him. He was pretty pitiful crying for a "snaaa" and trying to rip into his diaper bag.
The time in the back room was stressful for all of us. Tubes are a very routine surgery and literally take about 15 minutes. The only catch is that for little ones, general anesthesia is required. Which - normally isn't that big of a deal, except for the fact that we have a family history of malignant hyperthermia. MH is a rare - but potentially life threatening - disorder and is triggered by certain anesthetics. My uncle had a severe reaction once under surgery and since then our family has had to be aware of this and disclose to all doctors as it is hereditary AND not easily tested for. I've honestly never been questioned too much on it before this day, but holy cow - did this bit of family history add a wrinkle to Caleb's surgery. The anesthesiologist literally came back to talk to us three times about it and ask questions. The way they put children under at is with a mask and inhalant anesthetics. Unfortunately, the inhalants are what can trigger the serious MH response of elevated temperature, heart rate, etc. that can be so dangerous. While waiting I made several calls to try to get more information from family members and ultimately, Tim and I decided to insist the Dr. play it safe and use IV drugs instead of inhalants. The anesthesiologist seemed pretty put out by this as he had to flush the machine and attempt to find a vein in an unhappy toddler, but seriously?? This is my son's life we are talking about!!
So... all that definitely added to the stress of Caleb's already weepy prone (and 8 months pregnant mommy) but it just didn't seem worth the risk to chance it. I was super sad they wouldn't let me back to keep him calm during the IV insertion but this surgery center had their process (assembly line, really) down to a "T" and allowing moms back in the inner sanctum wasn't part of that process.
The good news is that it was over very fast. It seemed like one minute the nurse took him back and the next, the Dr. was on his way out to get us.
After the surgery, Caleb was groggy, his lip was swollen where they had to clip/stitch his upper frenulum (in addition to the tubes), but was he ever cute! In the waiting room he was super hungry and polished off two juices, two bags of honey grams, and a popsicle in about 10 minutes. We still had to wait about an hour - much longer than normal we were told thanks to that pesky MH history..l.
But, I'd say that's about as good of an outcome as we could have hoped for! What a trooper!
(In the days since, Caleb has recovered just fine. He was a little out of sorts and didn't want me to leave him for several days - probably due to the IV emotional trauma! But, since then, he's been talking up a storm - even more than usual! Dr. Milligan, our ENT said Caleb had the thickest ear mucus he had ever seen - it took several flushes with saline to clear it! He also said we could expect him to hear better almost immediately. Tim and I are both feeling really good about making this decision.)
No comments:
Post a Comment