Adelaide's Surgery

Adelaide had tubes put in her ears yesterday. Everything went really well. The procedure is called Myringotomy with Tubes. Basically the doctor makes a tiny slit in the eardrum and then pokes a small tube in the slit. He just pushes it into place. The tube is there to help drain fluid out of the middle ear and allow air in.

Your eustachian tube is a canal that links the middle ear with the throat area, and in children they are kind of flat. Adelaide's is also very very small. As kids grow, the eustachian tube gets bigger as well, so that's why ear infections are found mostly in children. The doctor placed a tube in the ear drum so now fluid and air can pass through both sides. With time the ear drum grows as well, so in about 24 months the tube will just fall out on its own as the ear drum grows and pushes it out of the slit. Apparently it doesn't hurt and the tube is so small that we probably won't even notice until we're changing the bed sheets or something. It will probably fall out in her sleep.

The otolaryngologist said Adelaide had a lot of gunk in there (bacterial infection) and that he cleaned it all out and suctioned the fluid. He put some drops in there and sent us home with some to continue treating her infection for a few more days. She is doing great though. They told me she would probably resume normal activities later that day, but I didn't really believe them. It's true though! She's fine. When they brought her to me after she woke up in the recovery room (I was waiting in our initial room which doubles as post-op) she was crying. They said she wasn't in pain at all but just that patients waking up from general anesthesia feel really really wierd. Plus she has no idea who is carrying her! She calmed down shortly and drank some juice (she wasn't supposed to eat or drink for hours before surgery b/c the anesthesia can upset their stomach and cause food to come back up) so she was definitely thirsty. We sat in the room for about 30 minutes or so then they said she could go. It wasn't bad at all. Once again, This experience with Adelaide was TOTALLY different from our surgery experience with Gorden. His was one of the hardest few days of my life.

So, she's happy and great and doesn't even know there is anything in her ear. She can't feel it and she can actually hear better right away. Its not the tubes but the fluid in one's ear that causes hearing loss, and the doctors say the ability to hear more and better happens instantly. So we're trying to keep it down around here a little bit because she may be sensitive to sound and everything will possibly be louder than normal to her.