Exactly a week ago (last Thursday), we had an appointment with the Pediatric ENT, Dr. Ragsdale, to take a look at Jacob's ears. It had been almost a week since his last antibiotic injections so we wanted to make sure he got in before those shots wore off. In our experience, once the medicine was out of his system, the ear infection came back raging. Dr. Ragsdale basically told me that the antibiotic injections were the "big guns" to treat ear infections and if those weren't working, our last resort was to have tubes put in. A myringotomy (putting tubes in the ears) is such a common procedure these days that we weren't too worried about the procedure itself, but I have to admit I was a little freaked out about them putting Jacob under. I asked how quickly Dr. Ragsdale could get us in because I didn't want Jacob's ear infection to come back and for him to suffer any more. He got us on the surgery schedule the next morning.
On Friday morning, we had to be at the Cooks Childrens Hospital at 6 am and the procedure would take place some time after 7 am (they start at 7 and do the procedures back to back based on the age of the patient). Once again, Jacob made sure to let everyone know that he was not supposed to get any shots. The nurses were great and kept telling him "we don't give any owies here." Once we were all checked in, they gave Jacob an oral sedative and we noticed him relax within just a few minutes. He was a little loopy and when he talked, we had no idea what he was saying! A little after 7, they came to take him away which was the most nerve-racking part of the day. I hated watching him get wheeled away knowing they were about to put him under. Luckily, they just use a gas mask and patients come out of the anesthesia soon after the mask is removed. Mark and I went to the waiting room and waited. Not even 10 minutes later Dr. Ragsdale came out and said that they were done and Jacob did just fine. We just had to wait for him to come out of it.
Ugh, coming out of it. That was NOT pretty. I went back there first (Mark had to stay with Maddie) and Jacob was just screaming and moaning. They put him in my lap and I didn't know what to do to console him! I said "is he in pain?" and the nurses said "no, it's just very confusing for him. Right now he's seeing double, he doesn't know where he is, etc." I knew it was just a matter of time before the anesthesia wore off, but he was clearly confused and uncomfortable. I just kept holding him and singing to him and telling him it was going to be okay and that he was going to feel better in just a few minutes. He also kept asking for Daddy but when I would say "Okay, Mommy has to leave to go get Daddy", he'd scream "no!" and didn't want to be left alone again. :( He asked for a drink so they gave him some water and then we managed to give him a popsicle. About 2 minutes later, he vomited it all up. In my lap. This was all going on while the nurse is going over the discharge papers with me asking me to sign all these things. I wanted to be like "Can we get him calm first?!" After getting cleaned up, I told Jacob I would go get Daddy. I pulled the car up and we were finally on our way home.
That anesthesia is potent stuff! We gave him another popsicle when we got home and 2 seconds later, he vomited that up too. I decided to wait to give him anything for a few hours. He was such a champ though...he never whined or cried about his ears and was back to normal in just a few short hours! We haven't heard a peep about his ears since. I've heard so many wonderful stories about how ear tubes have really helped other kids and I hope this is the case for Jake. I just can't stand seeing him suffer from another ear infection. These tubes are temporary and will fall out in a year, so hopefully by then he will have grown out of these types of infections.
Here's some video of him today. We were snowed in again today (can you believe this is the third big snow in Dallas this winter? It's unheard of!) so I decided to take some videos. The things that come out of his mouth constantly crack me up so I keep meaning to try and get him on video just talking about random stuff.
In case you can't hear what he says at the end of the video, he looks at me and says "Mommy, can you get the camera out of my face? I don't like that". I nearly fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard.
Jacob is obsessed with the Movie "Cars" and now has a collection of about 18 cars from the movie. It's beginning to get seriously difficult to keep track of them all. Here are just a few...
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