Nathaniel’s Surgery

Nathaniel has had several ear infections over his first 18 months of life, so his doctor recommended that he have tubes put in his ears. Nathaniel had surgery on July 20, 2009, almost 2 weeks ago, and everything went as smoothly as could be expected. We took him in his pajamas because we had to be there at 6:30 a.m. to get checked in, fill out paperwork, and get prepped for the procedure. After Nathaniel took medicine (Tylenol plus something else) to make him sleepy, he was a little spacey and off-balance. It slowed him down, including his speech, and Del and I heard Nathaniel say things we hadn’t heard before, such as “want down.” This was the first two-word phrase that we heard him say! Maybe he is saying more that we realize, but he talks so fast that we don’t hear actual words very often.

The surgery was scheduled for 8:00 a.m., and it ended up taking place around 8:30 a.m. We were able to go back and see Nathaniel in the recovery room by 8:45 or 9:00 a.m., and he woke up crying and screaming, as the doctor and nurses said he would. They say that the medicine makes confuses them so they don’t know where they are. That must be scary for anyone, let alone a toddler!

Once Nathaniel calmed down a little and drank some juice, we took him home. On the way home, Nathaniel got sick, but I think that helped him feel better. We sat on the couch and watch SpongeBob for awhile, and then Nathaniel wanted to get down and play. He was still a little off-balance though, so he kept falling down! That wore off in a couple of hours, and by noon, he was running around outside on the driveway.

Nathaniel was exhausted and could have used a nap mid-morning, but he was fighting sleep. I’m guessing that he didn’t want to fall asleep for fear that he would wake up and not know where he was again. Grandpa and Grandma Gust were with us, and Grandma finally got Nathaniel to fall asleep around 1:00 p.m. by swinging with him on our glider in the backyard. When Nathaniel woke up, he was back to normal, and he enjoyed playing the rest of the day and went to sleep easily that night.

Over the next week, we had to put drops in Nathaniel’s ears, and he didn’t mind them too much. For the first couple of days, he wanted us to put the drops in, and he held the bottle of eardrops on the way to daycare. By the end of the week, he had had enough.

Following the surgery, we didn’t notice much difference in Nathaniel at first. After a couple of days, though, we noticed that Nathaniel was talking a lot more than he had been. He was taking more often and was saying words and phrases that we hadn’t heard (or understood) before! It seems that the tubes have helped his hearing, and therefore his speech! We have yet to determine if they have helped his ear infections, though.