Sunday, April 10, 2016

Update to the tympanostomy tube procedure

Hi everyone!

Just a quick update for you in regards to Jordan's surgery.  In short, it went OK.

We got up super early on Friday morning to be at BC Children's Hospital by 7:15.  But I realised shortly after I got to the waiting room that my phone was not getting any service at this particular part of the hospital, which really sucks because Chris was waiting to hear from us.  And then things started to happen, and I couldn't get away to try calling, etc.  So poor Chris didn't get any word from us until it was all over.

Jordan did all right.  Not spectacular, but he wasn't any worse than expected.  He did NOT want to take a pre-emptive dose of Tylenol and Advil to get a jump on the ear soreness.  And he was nervous.  He didn't talk to anyone.  He didn't look once at his iPad.  He sought out lots of cuddles and kisses.  I had to hold him so they could put the mask on to administer the anaesthesia.  It was a valiant effort, having prepped him with our friend Jessie, but he wasn't buying it.  Dr. Kozak came into the wait room part way through to tell me that the fluid that had built up in Jordy's right ear three weeks ago was gone, and now the left ear was worse off, so they put the ear tubes into the left side.  He said, "the problem is, what do we do?  If it was my kid, I'd say don't do the right ear; he doesn't get ear infections on a regular basis, I think it is worth the risk."  So I told him I trusted his judgment and we skipped doing the right ear.  He went back in to surgery to finish up.  They also took advantage of his cooperative state to collect some blood work for the genetics lab.  And twenty minutes after talking to the ENT, I got the call to follow the nurse to recovery where J-man was doing battle with some nurses.


I walked in to hear two of them saying, "No hitting Jordan!" I came over and rubbed his back a while, and between me and another nurse we finally got him to take some medicine.  Then he ate a slew of popsicles.  They wheeled us into another room to have Jordy looked over and to give me some instructions.  While we waited I gave Jordy some new Star Wars toys, including a BB-8 figure to hang out with his R2-D2 and C-3PO!  We were given the all clear by 11.

Since then Jordan has been recovering well.  He had a little soreness that called for some Tylenol, but we think he's past that now.

What does not putting the ear tube into his right ear mean for Jordan's hearing?  Well, it may mean we need to go back at some future date and do it anyway.  OR maybe not....  What I am most concerned about is checking the hearing in that ear again.  Is it still worse?  Or did it improve? If not, will it get worse still? No idea right now. We will be talking to Ning, our school audiologist, on Monday to see what she can get in terms of results.  Stay tuned.

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