Surgery

Ava’s surgery went well. It was a stressful day for everyone though. We needed to be at the hospital by 6:15 am. We couldn’t give her anything other than clear liquids and nothing after 5am. So we woke her up at 5:00 in the morning and gave her some apple juice. Then we dressed her and popped her in the car for the ride to the hospital. Michael spent the night and then the morning with his grandfather (my mother was still in the hospital).

Ava pitched a fit when they put on her identification bracelet. Then she pitched another fit when they took her vitals. Then we got to wait. They decided to give her something for her anxiety because they couldn’t imagine her separating from us any other way. It worked beautifully. A loopy toddler is actually cute and a bit funny. They took her back to surgery and as I understand it, they put her under first with the mask before putting in her IV. If she were only having the tubes put in, they wouldn’t have needed the IV at all.

Putting in the tubes went smoothly. She still has a lot of fluid in her right ear although the left was clear. We definitely made the right decision about the tubes. It’s been 2-3 months solid now that she’s had fluid in one ear and maybe both. That has a huge impact on hearing. After her ears were drained they did the hearing test. The audiologist said her hearing is great which is wonderful news.

When I got to the recovery area Ava was in a groggy panic. They let her wake up without me and with the IV still in and strapped to her hand and arm. She was extremely upset about the IV. They apparently wanted to leave it in until they were sure she wasn’t going to throw up. I asked them to take it out and explained that she wasn’t going to calm down until it was out. After that it was just a matter of giving her some juice and graham crackers and waiting an hour or so until they let us go home.

We were home by lunch and Ava was eating a cheese roll up as if nothing unusual had happened that morning. Overall, a decent experience. I’m grateful everything went well. It’s good to know she can finally hear because all the fluid is gone and that the tubes will keep it from building up in there again. It's also good to know for sure that there isn't an underlying hearing loss separate from the fluid in the middle ear issue.

So now, we can move on with therapy knowing that Ava can hear us clearly.