Today was another chapter in the seemingly never-ending story of Ria's Ears. The final exciting one, though, most likely.Here's a few weeks shortened into one paragraph: One of Ria's ear tubes fell out in January (as expected), but the other was holding on still. The left ear drum (without tube) was slightly retracted, but no fluid this time. The lack of fluid resulted in a perfect hearing test. This left us in the "grey zone" for deciding whether or not to have a 2nd set of tubes placed. Her persistent crankiness and apparent ear discomfort (we'd gone to the pediatrician for suspected ear infections twice since January, but the ears were clean, just in pain) led us to decide to go ahead for a 2nd set of tubes. We were feeling somewhat "American", in that we weren't sure if we were swatting a fly with a nuclear missile, if you know what I mean....but we were going for the surgery anyways.
So, this morning at 7:30am, Ria had the 2nd set of tubes placed (the right one was removed and a new one placed). Whenever they place a 2nd set of tubes, especially with someone with a history of snoring since birth, they check the adenoids to see if they are blocking the eustacian tubes. Ria's adenoids were definately too big, so they were lasered out this morning as well. That gave us a feeling of "we sure did the right thing!"...if we hadn't gone in for the 2nd set of tubes, she'd never have "grown into" her eustation tubes, and the pain would have continued, and a some point we'd have had to go in again anyways. Now we know the root cause of all the problems, and its been fixed!
Luckily, the technology of adenoidectomies has changed a lot in 20 years. 20 years ago they were cut out with a knife and your nose got packed with gauze....and removing that gauze was "fun". Nowadays they just laser them out, and the cuts are immediately cauterized. No packing, just a bit of pain.
Our baby is doing great, if a bit touchy and desirous of Tylenol ;-). ...And the ear saga is over. In 8 months or so the tubes will grow out, and with the adenoids out her ear drums should be just fine without them!
Happy parents. Happy happy happy happy happy parents.
