Ear Tubes and Adenoidectomy

In the past four months, Olivia has had 8 ear infections. Poor little girl would get sick .. get better for a day, get an ear infection, go on an antibiotic which hurt her stomach, do that for 10 days, get sick and start the cycle again.

There was a ton of fluid in her ears, and we noticed she had trouble locating sounds. We could ask her to come find us, and she'd try really hard but look from room to room, with no idea where the sound was coming from. 

And don't forget her ruptured ear drum back at Christmas.

I really didn't want her to have ear tubes. A ped told us on ear infection 2, "she might end up with tubes." I thought that was crazy .. just 2 ear infections. I didn't want my baby to go through surgery.

On infection 4, another ped brought it up "if you get to that point, you'll be so ready for her to have them." 

Well .. ear infection 8, which needed a stronger antibiotic than the strong one that really hurt her stomach .. that was the last straw. We were ready for them. Our ENT was great and said if she ruptured her ear drum multiple times, it could lead to hearing loss - which we don't want.

We really didn't want her adenoids out either - since tubes isn't that big of a deal, but adenoids is like having your tonsils removed. We noticed Olivia was a mouth breather but thought that was developmental.  :)  He said her adenoids were very large and would cause her to need repeat tubes. Also, she'd be able to breathe better.

The day before surgery, we took Olivia for her last good meal. And went all out with junk food. Mac and cheese, fries (which she dipped in the mac and cheese), apples and a "sushi" made out of a rice krispie with a swedish fish. Thanks Cowfish!

Olivia couldn't have anything to eat or drink the morning of, which was so sad. She was so hungry.

Sweet thing dancing around in her little gown.

We had a solid hour to kill - so I blew up a glove for her. It bought us at least 5 minutes. 

They gave her a baby cocktail. Of course she said "mo mo?" (more). Then she started cracking up. Everything was hysterical. They took her back and said they'd update us, but she'd be about 30 minutes.

I almost ran out of Facebook and Instagram to distract me.

Surgery went really well (and since this is three weeks later, her post op did too). But the worst is going back there. She was awake but spinning and couldn't figure out what was done or where she was or why she was out of it. She cried and cried. We had a drink but she couldn't get the straw in her mouth and didn't want our help and kept getting so frustrated and swatting our hands away. She cried the whole way home. We put her down for a nap and she woke up doing well and hungry.

I had gotten her some ice cream for her throat and chick fil a nuggets since they are her favorite. She was dipping her nuggets in icecream. Maybe she's onto something?

After that, she didn't really eat much the next week. She lost a good big of weight and her toddler belly was gone. (3 weeks later she's gained it all back and then some!) She was also waking in the middle of the night - I'm sure with a sore throat. We could only give her Tylenol, which I know doesn't really help much with pain. 

About 10 days later she was back to her normal self. Every day was a little better than the last. She did run a fever for the first 4, which they told us to expect - and kept getting kicked out of daycare for it ... oops. 

After she woke from her nap, we were playing outside, and I noticed a huge difference in the way she handled sounds. Instead of looking around for them, the second she heard the sound, she looked directly at it. It's amazing the difference it has made already.

In the past 3 weeks she's been healthy - which is longer than any time since her first birthday!! I am loving our happy, healthy, energetic baby girl - and love that she's not on any antibiotics!

We've got a few months of words to catch up on - since she hasn't heard clearly for awhile (all of that night time reading! haha) - so we are repeating everything multiple times. But I know she'll catch up.

I couldn't find much on experiences with the adenoidectomy online - so I thought I'd write ours up. Whew - that was long!