The tubes go in...

I know this is REALLY late, and I've been a total slacker, but hey, life is busy!

As most of you know, Caitlyn had her first set of tubes put in on April 9th. We did a little talking with her about the procedure and she was a trooper!

Here's a run down of the morning

We woke her up around 6:20 because she wasn't allowed anything to drink after 6:30. So she got her one sip in, we got dressed and headed out the door. We needed to be to admitting by 7:15. They got her information put into the computer, her hospital bracelet on (and one for Abby to), and we headed over to Outpatient Surgery. We were called back around 7:45. One of the nurses came over and asked if Caty liked play-duh, what kid doesn't! So she got set up with a play-duh table and went to town. She got a good 20-30 minutes of playing in before they gave her some medicine to help relax her. I don't recall what the medicine was called, but it was a very small dose, due to Caty's size (30 inches and 26 lbs). After about 5 minutes she started getting a little loopy, then it got worse and worse. Pretty soon, she couldn't sit up by herself, her words were slurred and she was drooling. She was acting like she was TOTALLY SMASHED!! (Notice in the picture to left, she doesn't have her usual smile on her face.) Since she was unable to sit up by herself, we, as in Scott and I, decided that the play-duh needed to go. This was quite upsetting to Caty and she turned on the tears and even screaming at times. We kept reassuring her that we could bring out her play-duh at home, but she wasn't buying it. Scott and I took turns holding her; she couldn't hold her head up and it was like holding a floppy 26 lb baby. FINALLY the anesthesiologist came and took her back for the surgery. Once she was gone, this is when I broke down and finally cried. It wasn't because of her having the surgery, I wasn't concerned at all about it, it was just so hard seeing her like this. Scott and I went out into the waiting room. I headed out into the hall to have something to eat and use the restroom. I went back into the waiting room and not even 20 minutes had passed by and her ENT, Dr Ro, came and got us. He let us know that everything had gone fine with getting the fluid out and putting in the tubes. Caty was just coming out of the anesthesia when we got back into recovery. She wasn't the happiest of kids, but who would be with a mask on and wires attached to your chest. Once she was able to sit on my lap and have a popsicle, she started doing much better. She did say that her ears hurt, but the doctors warned us that kids usually do this, even if their ears don't hurt. Pretty soon she was doing well and was discharged. She'd gone into surgery around 8:45 and we were escorted out of the hospital in our wheelchair around 9:30 and were home by 10:00. It couldn't have gone any easier!

Caty spent some time lounging on the couch and by noon she was on the floor playing. I can't remember exactly when, but it was either later this same afternoon or the next morning, that we noticed her hearing had improved. What a relief!! Now we're just waiting for her speech to start clearing up.

Here she is playing a few hours after the tubes go in

We've got a follow-up appointment the first week of May, so I'll let you all know how it goes. At her last speech therapy session I brought in her hearing test results to share with the speech therapist and got some interesting feedback. Her hearing loss, before the tubes, fell right in the decibel area where the sounds that she has a hard time making are (the letter sounds she has a hard time with are: c, k, g, and sh). Just what we wanted to hear, no seriously, this is good news. She wasn't hearing the sounds right, which was causing her to not say them correctly. So, we'll keep our fingers crossed that over time, she's get the sounds down pat - the correct way this time.