Tubes

It finally happened. We were finally able to get tubes in Zach's ears. He has had 6 ear infections in a 12 month period - 5 of those infections in the past 3 months. The last ear infection he had didn't even clear up the fluid he had in his ears with antibiotics so when we went into surgery this morning his ears were pretty bad.

We showed up at the hospital this morning at 8:30am - our surgery "time" was suppose to be 9:30am. Zach isn't suppose to eat or drink anything past midnight - so we let him sleep until about 8am and then got him dressed and left immediately for the hospital to try and keep him distracted from eating. Of course on the drive to the hospital he kept asking for a snack.

We check in and then sit in the waiting room and wait and wait and wait. The waiting room was PACKED. You could tell there were lots of kids having tubes put in and tonsils taken out. All the younger kids were cranky because they were ALL HUNGRY! No moms or dads complained at the misbehaving kids because we all knew why it was happening! We kept Zach entertained with the fish tank in the waiting room. Finally about 9:30am they called for Zach (the doctor must have been at least 30 minutes behind).

Dustin went back with Zach while Jen waited with Logan. They apparently went and put a gown on Zach (it was so stinking cute - I wish we had a picture of it) and took all his vitals. Then someone took Zach from Dustin and carried him away. Dustin comes back to the waiting room for Jen looking all sad (what parent wouldn't). The whole procedure was only suppose to last about 20 minutes - the same day surgery center was so busy they didn't have a recovery room for Zachary yet even though he had already left for surgery. About 10 minutes later they called us back because they had room for us. About 10 minutes after that the doctor comes it. She says his ears were REALLY BAD. They do a hearing test before surgery and Zach failed it - the kid medically could not hear. This surprised us because Zach never really showed signs of not answering us when we talked to him. The doctor said the surgery went great and gave us ear drops for Zach. About 5 minutes after that they carried Zach in.....crying.

The first thing one of the nurses said to us was "did you know he has a slight cold?" (they didn't want Zach to be coughing for surgery - he wasn't). Jen said yes - he has had a cold symptoms since October (totally true). The nurse gave Jen a dirty look and walked out. We tried to console Zach but he just kept crying. Another nurse was in the room going over all the paperwork and we asked how long the kids normally cry - she said until they leave the hospital. Not sure if she said that so we would leave or if it was true.

We got Zach dressed (while he was still crying) and head to the car. We were suppose to go back to the doctors office 1.5 hours later for them to look in his ears to make sure they weren't bleeding. We didn't want to go home and then turn around and come right back...so we drove to the golden arches for some food - none of us had eaten anything that morning. That is when Zach stopped crying....our kid loves McDonald chicken nuggets...that is what brought a smile to his face! We ate in the car in the parking lot. Then decided to see if we could go to the doctors office 30 minutes early. They said one of Zach's ears was already draining fluid and the other had a little bit of dried blood but looked okay. We left the doctors office and took the long route home so Zach could watch all the construction trucks on one of the roads in the area.

By the time we got home the kid was his normal self. He was running around the house chasing our cats....playing with bubbles on our back deck....and giving Logan kisses!

In two weeks we have his hearing checked again.....we are expecting a passing grade!