Not Quiet as Tough This Time

Mia's ear tubes surgery was this morning. We had a fiasco with our insurance company on Friday late afternoon/early evening, but it appears all is settled. My mom came and spent the night last night, so that we could wake Mia up at 5:30 and drive to the hospital. We got there just at 6:00. There were several other families there too. While all the other children (all as young as Mia by the way) sat pretty contently with their parents, our little one wanted to walk around and shriek with joy every few minutes. She is such a happy girl!

By 7:00 we were all checked in, and the nurse called us back. They tried to weigh her, but she refused to cooperate. She wasn't mad, just squirmy, so they took an estimate. They tried a couple of times and finally got her blood pressure, and they got her oxygen level easily. Then we walked into the pre-op room where a nurse, anesthesiologist and Dr. Baktha came in to see if we had any questions. Of course, we recently did this with Lily, so we were familiar with the procedures. We weren't as nervous this time which made it (a little) easier.

After talking to all these people, we changed Mia into her little gown. I have to say, she looked adorable.

 Then the nurse came back in and gave her Motrin and Tylenol. She isn't big enough to have the medicine that "relaxed" Lily, so she received these instead. A few minutes after that, the nurse came back in to get her. We wondered how they planned on taking her out on the stretcher, but she had a big warm blanket to carry her with instead. She let us walk down to the OR door with her; we both gave her kisses and then handed her (and her Glow-Worm who she can't be without) off to the nurse. It was harder for me to physically hand her to someone else than see her wheeled out.

She came and got the stretcher a few minutes later so she could lie down while they operated. About 10 minutes later, Dr. Baktha came back to say he was finished, and she did well. He said her fluid build-up was thicker than he realized, and he had to use a bigger syringe to get it all out. He then gave us some tips on how to get the drops in her ears because we thought that might be a challenge.

We were fully prepared for Mia to come in crying and coughing like Lily did as she awoke from the procedure. As I have said before, our girls are very different from one another! When the wheeled Mia in, she was looking around and drinking some apple juice. They put the rail down and sat her up. I immediately picked her up, wrapped her back up in the blanket and handed her Glow-Worm. We sat down in the chair, and she just sucked her thumb and relaxed against me. Not a peep. They took her vitals again; she whimpered when they took her blood pressure, but that was it. We turned on her pink songs DVD, and she just sat in my arm watching it. About 10 minutes later, we were discharged to several nurses cooing over her and saying she was "the patient of the day."

When we got home, she ate a snack and then took a nice long nap. She was a little off schedule the rest of the day, but she did well and went to bed at her normal time. We had to put drops in her ears this evening before bed time which we were a little nervous about. However, Ryan was able to lay her on her side, and she was perfectly still for about a minute allowing him to get the drops in. Other than getting up way too early this morning, today went very well. Mia did great through her procedure and seems to be recovering well. Another blessing!