They're the Most Teeniest Ears in Town!

We got her up at 5:00 a.m. She watched (or listened) to us scarf down breakfast on the way to the hospital, with no food or drink herself since 7:30 the night before, without a single complaint. She giggled and waved and smiled and wrinkled her nose at everyone as they came in one at a time to do their thing to prepare her for the surgery. "What's a lion say?" we'd ask her, and she gleefully roooooared to the absolute delight of everybody who came around.

And then finally it was my turn to put all the surgery fashion wear on. They gave me a heated blanket for Kiki. I bundled her up, and we followed an RN down the hall and to the operating room. "Listen to this!" she announced when we entered the room, and Kiki happily performed her lion impression for her new audince.

And then it was time for the anesthesia. When we went to the class, they warned me all the things that would happen. Some kids have an initial reaction to the anesthesia that causes them to become hyper for a few seconds before they're out. Some kids go completely limp when they're out. Sometimes their eyes don't fully close.

The mask lowers towards her. She starts squirming. I lean close and start singing to her, and stop almost immediately, self-conscious, and the nurses encourage me to continue, so I do, trying to focus only on my child, whose eyes never leave mine, until they gently tell me it's time for me to leave, she's completely asleep. Her eyes are still open, but I can hear her snoring as they pull the mask away, which makes me laugh for some reason.

I start tearing up on the way back to her room, and I'm glad I held it together because I was really afraid I'd be hysterical and therefore banned from the OR altogether.

They'd told us that it would 10 minutes, give or take, before the doctor would be done. I don't know how long it was, but I didn't even have time to begin worrying. In he comes, and he announces, "Those are the smallest ears I have ever seen!"

Now when we had our first appointment with this doctor, it made me disgruntled and nervouse that he'd spent all of about 30 seconds checking Kiki's chart and ears before setting an appointment for tubes. I mentioned then that no one had ever seen her eardrums; I asked him then if HE was able to see them at the appointment. He had said no, because there was a lot of wax build-up in her ears.

Well, the wax was the only issue he was able to address while she was in the OR. Even with the smalled microscope he had, he couldn't see more than the slightest edge of an eardrum in one ear; nada in the other. He said in his whole career he'd only been tricked like this once before; and in that instance, he was able to get a tube into at least ONE ear.

Alas, not with the Kiki. He couldn't even get close enough to the eardrum to drain any possible liquid behind it. So the only thing he could do was clean out the wax.

Ahhh, waxy ears just like her daddy!

And THEN he said, you know, it's possible she's failed those tympanum tests because her ears are so small that the instruments can't get a decent reading.

for cripe's sake. Yes, that's what her primary doc and I thought ALREADY! Gah.

Anyway, now we get to visit the ENT every three months indefinitely so he can more closely monitor her hearing, the growth of her ears, and any possible ear infection recurrence.

A couple minutes after the doc left, an RN came in to tell us that Kiki was awake and led us back to her. Now she was the first operation of the day, so she was the only one in recovery. She was bundled up in an RN's lap as the RN rocked her in a rocking chair. She grinned when she saw us. I got the RN's rocking chair seat, and Kiki cuddled in, and a bunch of RNs came up and said, "Is this the baby who does the lion impression?"

She'd been awake for maybe 3 minutes, but she's got the makings of a star performer. She did that lion impression like a trooper, and when everyone cheered, she cheered right back. Then she settled back and drank some apple juice and eventually they checked us out, and the WHOLE time, she acted like NOTHING had happened. It was now about 8:30 am, 4 and a half hours after we got her up, dragged her across town, stripped her down, drugged her, FINALLY gave her something to drink, and she was acting her normal everyday self, like this was all just another day.

So we pushed the envelope and took her to see her Mamaw who has been in the hospital since Friday. She waved her hospital tag around triumphantly, showing Mamaw where she'd been all morning, and cooed and flirted and kissed Mamaw and giggled.

And then at 9:00 a.m. sharp, it all hit at one time and she was DONE. So we bundled out of there before she got full-volume, got her fastened into the car, and both she and I were out like a light before we hit the freeway (which is 2 lights away from the hospital.)

So no tubes. Kiki's her same old self, less an acre of earwax, apparently. And I do NOT feel like an idiot for being all nervous and scared down to the very second the doctor said, "She's doing great."

Kiki's Mamaw said, "Well, now you know what to expect and the next time won't be as scary!"

It's like she doesn't even KNOW me.

:) And that's the news from 'round here!