Cara's Surgery

During my bouts of sickness the kids went through some ear infections.  I has SO happy to get a new pediatrician and get set up with an ENT very quickly.  Cara's doctor worried us and said that Cara had a severe infection in her ears and it looked like a "substance" was causing lots of puss and needed to be removed.  Cara's face had been hurting and was her cheek was red and felt hot, so the Dr. said the infection was spreading into her face!  She would not even try to deal with it because of Cara's ear tubes and sent in a STAT referral to an ENT in Lancaster.  Their office called and got us an appointment for the next day.

 Needless to say, the ENT assured us that the "substance" was just ear wax that needed to be removed so he could assess the present condition of her tubes and possibly place new ones.  The pain in her face was not the infection spreading but just the spread of pain from her ear infection.  The facial pain only lasted a few days but it was very uncomfortable for Cara and kept her from sleeping well.  So, we went over to the hospital in Palmdale and got set up for surgery the next week.

 

She was a good little patient.  They treated her much more like a "sick" patient then we were used to.  We have been through this 7 times and it was Cara's 3rd, so it was no big deal to us.  She was the only child for surgery that morning so over the nurse intercom things they referred to her as "baby girl".  She was very sedated and slept for a couple hours before waking up in recovery.  I was a little annoyed because I hadn't had much sleep and we had to get up extra early to drive an hour to the hospital and be there by 6, so I was ready for to her to wake up so we could get home and I could get a nap too.

 When she finally did start waking up she started to gag and throw up a little.  So I had to get the nurses attention and clean Cara up after she caught all the "goo" in her hand.  Of course, she fell back asleep after this but finally they wheeled her into a secondary recovery/discharge room where I got her dressed and could finally take her home. 

She ended up having the wax removed as well as her old tubes.  When the Dr. made the incision in her ear drum, there was no fluid inside, so he did not place new tubes.  This bothered me a little because we went through this whole process and Cara didn't even get the new tubes!  I am just worried that without the tubes she will have recurrent ear infections like Merilee did.  The Dr. thinks that she has outgrown the need for them and her Eustachian tubes are able to function as they should.  I hope he is right!  She still has the same healing process as if she had the tubes and has to avoid water in the ears, etc.  She was able to take home her wax encrusted tubes as a souvenir and as of today she has had no further problems.

 As for the Dr. who (overreacted) we were seeing at the beginning of this process, we are no longer seeing her and have changed to our new family doctor who is wonderful.  We have seen the PA once but it is a million times better than the old place.  I would not take my child back to that filthy office ever again!  I have so much to say about the 2 times we were there and nothing is good, so I will leave it at that.