William Gets Tubes

In November, the school conducted hearing tests and William failed it.  They retested him in December and he failed again.  So they wanted us to give a page of the results to his doctor and see what he thought we should do.  He found that William had fluid build up in his ears and referred us to an ENT.  The ENT scheduled him for surgery to get tubes put in this morning. 

We had to be there at 7:15 am and our first major snow storm hit during the day/night before!  William didn't act nervous or worried before the surgery until we got to the hospital.  William is not a big fan of doctors in the first place and having to be at the hospital raised the anxiety level.  William wanted me to sit on his bed with him and held onto my arm in a death grip for much of the time that anyone else was there.  The nurse had to hide behind the curtain when we weighed him as he wouldn't even get on the scale with her there.  These are normal reactions for William at his well child check ups.  When the ENT came in I mentioned how it was probably going to be difficult to separate him from me to take him to surgery and hinted at getting something to relax him.  The doctor told me to "Suppress any trepidation as he will pick up on it".  I assured the doctor that it was all on Will's part that the anxiety was coming from.  The "sleepy medicine doctor" came in to talk to us and we were relieved to find that they wouldn't be giving Will an IV.   After being with Will for about 5 minutes, the anesthesiologist asked if I wanted him to give William something to help him relax.  The nurse had me give the medicine to Will and even then, he wasn't too thrilled with taking it.  It made a BIG differnce!  He was still a little apprehensive about being wheeled away for surgery, but he didn't cry, cling, or fuss!   When the anesthesiologist checked in after the surgery, he said Will did great and did everything they asked him to and that "the medicine might have had a little to do with that".  Will's right ear had some blood in/on it (as did his right hand) and he has been complaining about it hurting, but otherwise it went well.

And because I am me....PICTURES....(I always take pictures of everything!)

This picture shows a little bit of the anxiety Will was feeling

This is how he came back from surgery!

Checking out the face the nurse put on his cup

Will got to ride in a wheelchair ☺