Surgery Day

Ear Tube Surgery .... Oh boy! After much thought and deliberation, we decided to have Max get ear tubes to help stop ear infections. Max has had to suffer from ear infections for years and finally I just insisted on getting more information and bringing it to the doctors attention. After we took Max in for his 5 year checkup, his pediatrician noticed that his hearing was not perfect. I told him I had several concerns and had inquired about getting tubes on several occasions. Each time I asked, the doctors told me that if he was not having 8 to 10 ear infections a year, he was just normal. Well 4 to 6 ear infections along with strep throat, and not passing a hearing test for kindergarten was finally enough to get a ear nose and throat doctors name. We met with the doctor back when grandma and grandpa were in town and surgery was scheduled for May 6th.

We had to see the pediatrician a few days before his surgery date to make sure his heart and lungs were good to go. During this visit, the pediatrician questioned me why I was not having his adenoids removed as well. This of course got me all stressed out and questioned my thought of just having ear tubes put in. Since Max was 5 the doctors told me that he should be done having the ear infections and having both removed would solve the problems for sure. Ear tubes would most likely solve the problem and is much less invasive than tubes and adenoids. In the end, talking with Mark in Afghanistan and my folks, we decided to just stick with the first thought of only getting the ear tubes put in. These pictures show Max getting prepped for surgery. The hardest part of the whole day was the fasting! Max could not eat or drink 4 hours before surgery and he was a trooper. His surgical time was 9:10 am but, he did not go in until 9:30 or so.

The doctors called Max back, but he quickly corrected them by saying, "Call me Dr. Bridges!" So the doctor and nurses called him Dr. Bridges ... we walked back to the surgical room which was rather cold. I lifted him up on the table and the nurses put blankets on him. He was strapped down and the big "elephant mask" came up to help him go to sleep. I sang him a song and he was sleep really quick! After he was out, the nurses showed me out of the surgical room. By the time I got changed back in to my clothes and to my waiting room, it was only 5 minutes or so when the nurse came and told me that surgery was done. Very quick! A few minutes later, they came and told me he was waking up and I went to meet him in the recovery room. I held him as he woke up and was quite groggy. He ate a frozen popsicle and about 30 minutes later we were in the car and heading home. Besides being super sleepy he did really well. We were at the park by 4 pm that day and thank heavens things went really well.

Although Mark was not there to see us through this, we did have a wonderful home teacher come and give Max a blessing prior to surgery. With so many prayers and a resilient little boy, all went well and since the surgery no ear infections! Hooray!!