My baby's ears

[FrancisCastle]

As I've talked about before in this thread, my 3 month old (bigE) had tubes inserted in his ears on Thursday. This is because he hasn't passed any hearing tests, not because of multiple ear infections.

Our surgery was scheduled for 8:30 am so he wasn't able to eat at all after 2:30 am. This was stressful because he is used to eating about every 4 hours. We arrived at the hospital at 7:00 am for the preop and everything was fine, bigE was actually in a pretty good mood. Then 8:00 comes and he's starting to get cranky. By 8:20 he is in full-on bloody murder scream mode. I'm staring at the clock...8:30...8:40...8:50...where the hell is the doctor?!?

Finally she comes in at 8:55 after everyone in the surgery area has had the pleasure of listening to screaming for the last half hour. The nurse takes him in the back and the surgery is over within 10 minutes. I have the bottle ready and waiting.

After eating, we get moved up to the children's floor for observation. The nurse at the clinic told me this was because of the anesthesia and his age. The nurse on the floor informed us that we would be staying the night because he needed to be observed for 23 hours. What?! It would have been nice to know this ahead of time to be able to prepare. I had to scramble to find childcare for the other kids and then run home and pack an overnight bag.

At least all went well. Surgery was great, no complications. Everything went well overnight and we were discharged right away in the morning. However, I don't notice any improvement. I'm not sure if he should be able to hear instantly or if it takes some time. They don't have bigE scheduled for another hearing test until two weeks from now, so maybe I shouldn't worry so much.

[Khadaji]

Glad to hear it was (mostly) good. Here's wishing him a speedy recovery and that it works.

[Drunky Smurf]

Don't worry too much yet.

I had tubes put in when I was a wee tot. Though I'm not sure if was for fluid or something else. I'm told I never really got full hearing until about 4 when I was taken for another surgery and it was after that one that I got full hearing. My mom said she was worried that the early years of not full hearing would affect my development but I don't think it did. I was mostly a straight A student through school and I have a good job now.

[FrancisCastle]

Thanks for the encouragement

[Sarabellum1976]

My brother had the tubes in his ears as a wee boy also, with several "adjustment" surgeries afterwards.

He regained his hearing, speaks and hears perfectly now, 30+ years later.

However, to this day, he finds scuba diving to be very painful to his inner ears, which he attributes to the tubes/surgery he had as a kid.