Ear Tubes? No Need to Cry!

My son had eight ear infections in the first 11 months of his life. This meant a lot of days of missed work for me, a sick, miserable screaming baby for days at a time, and two very tired parents. So at his one year check-up, I asked our pediatrician about tubes. The pediatrician sent us to an ENT, who immediately told us our son needed ear tubes, and he could schedule him in for surgery that coming Thursday. It was a Tuesday afternoon.

Wait, what? Slow down! I wanted to say. I’m not ready for my baby to have surgery and anesthesia. I’m not ready to let him out of my sight in a medical facility! I talked it through with the doctor, who assured me the surgery was so quick my son would be away from me for seven minutes max.

So Thursday morning at 5 a.m., I woke up my sleeping baby and drove to the medical center. I had been freaking out for two full days and probably slept two hours the night before. I was still worried about the anesthesia and still worried about my baby being away from me.  I had multiple worse case scenarios going through my head and despite everyone I talked to, I just couldn’t be nonchalant about what was going to happen.

But it went really well. The staff at the facility was helpful, comforting and explained everything to me. After they had called us back, they put us in our own room with a child-sized bed for recovery. The anesthesiologist, our ENT doctor and the nurse walked through all the steps of what would happen with me before they came back to our room to take my baby.

When they were ready for him, the nurse took him from me to bring him to surgery. Then I sat down and opened a game of Scrabble on my phone while I waited. Before I had even finished the game, I looked up to see our ENT coming down the hall. Startled he wasn’t with my son I immediately jumped up, afraid something was wrong. He assured me everything was great, and they were already finished! The anesthesiologist then followed with my son in his arms and laid him on the bed in the room. The nurses took over from there to bring him out of the anesthesia.

By 2 p.m. that afternoon, my son was back to tearing our house apart and eating like a horse. I’d been anxious, but everything went great and was over so quickly. So far since surgery he has been ear infection free, and I am so thankful for that! There are a few things I wish I had known, though:

Tips

• Bring food and drink with you – After my son woke up, they said he would be released after he ate. I, fortunately, had thought to bring him milk in a sippy and had a snack in my bag from the day before. They did provide goldfish for him, but you might want to bring something you know your baby loves to eat.
• Be ready when they bring your child back to you – my son was completely asleep, limbs limp, and unresponsive as he was still under anesthesia. It can be really upsetting if you aren’t prepared to see your child this way!
• Bring a lovey – my son definitely needed his blue blanky and pacifier after he came out of the anesthesia. He was grumpy and in pain and needed his comfort items.
• Prepare to stay home all day – my son took a nap when we got home and was back to being his non-stop, constantly hungry self by the afternoon, but everyone’s child is different. It was good just to be home with him for a day with nothing big planned so we could take it easy – or as easy as a busy baby boy can!
• Have Tylenol or Motrin at home – Obviously your doctor will tell you what to do, but I found this helped later that evening as he recovered from the surgery.
• Don’t plan a trip to the pool for two weeks – Again, listen to what your doctor says, but water is a no after ear tube surgery for a while, so we made sure to do other activities in the coming weeks to make sure healing took place the best way possible.

What are your tips for managing ear infections, or ear tube surgery? Did you find surgery helped?