He's done!

K man had his ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) follow-up this morning.

Again with the flirting with all the ladies working on the floor. Again he walked away with a bag full of goodies.

But those ladies will have to find another boy to flirt with now. He's done with the ear tube saga. The doctor said his ears look perfect; like they've never even had tubes in them. He's a good healer apparently.

The audiologist said that his hearing is in the normal range. It is a bit on the low end of normal for the lower tones, but it is still in the normal range.

So, after 2 1/2 years of ENT visits, we're done.

Chapter closed.

All done!

K's surgery is behind us.

He is a remarkable little boy. We took him to the hospital this morning and he was in good spirits despite the fact that he couldn't eat or drink anything.

We sat in the waiting area for almost an hour before we were taken into the surgical area. K waited rather patiently.

The nurse took his blood pressure, pulse-ox, weight and temperature, then gave him his special surgery PJs to wear. He was also given a super-cool surgical hat that he got to keep. (I scanned the Polaroid the nurse took of us...I don't know why Craig turned half b&w.)

I am not looking at the camera because I was crying. They'd just brought out a little girl from surgery who was crying for her mommy who, inexplicably, was not waiting for her daughter and had to be paged to come to her bedside.

K, however, was having a blast as you can see from the photo. He was watching Cars and busily wrapping the nurse around his little finger.

The anesthesiologist came to explain things to us, then left again. She came back shortly to get the little man. He took her hand and walked to the OR as though he was going to go play with some new friends.

Twenty minutes later, they wheeled him back to us. He was just waking up and very floppy, but otherwise fine. No screaming or crying this time.

He simply woke up, got some yummy juice and crackers, then asked for and ate FOUR popsicles.

The nurse marked his ear with his initial so the doctors would operate on the correct ear...

On our way out of the hospital K remarked "That was fun!"

An older lady overheard him and said "I bet that's the first time anyone's said that!"

That's my boy!

Surgery in the AM

K man is to report to the hospital for his surgery at 7:15 tomorrow morning.

I told him this morning that he was going to go to the doctor and that someone would come and take him to another room.

They will put a funny mask over your mouth and nose and it will make you go to sleep for a little while. I did my best to sound confident.

Then they will wake me up? he asked.

Yep, they'll wake you up and bring you back to Mommy and Daddy.

Oh. Okay.

If you ask him why he's going to the doctor tomorrow he'll say:

They're going to take out the tube.

Premature Elation

We parked the PT in our church's parking lot and set off hand-in-hand to walk the six blocks to our 20-story white and grey destination.

The walk was pleasant. K held my hand without the usual pulling away. He commented on the men pouring concrete ("They're pouring cement, Mommy!") and babbled incessantly about where we were headed.

We entered the building and caught an elevator to the 5th floor. I want to go that way mama!

Sorry, but we need to go this way.

We approach the desk and K announces Hi! I'm here to get my ears checked! The desk attendant smiles. Oh? And your name sir?

We sit in the cramped waiting area "reading" the newspaper and a sports magazine until a friendly woman appears and calls K's name.

Hi! he says. I'm K.

She introduces herself and the audiologist. Again, he introduces himself without prompting. Hi! I'm K!

One of the women look in his ears and say the words I am unprepared for. Looks like there is still a tube there.

They play games. First, K is to hit the scoop of a plastic shovel when he hears a sound, sending plastic bugs flying. He loves this game, but is patient and actually listens to hear the prompt before smacking the shovel scoop. His laughter is making all three adult women giggle.

He's done so well he earns 4 stickers, 2 pencils and 2 suckers (1 for him and 1 he's requested for his sister).

We head to the next appointment waiting area and check in. We're "reading" another magazine and attempting to not bother fellow waiters when we hear K's name.

Hi! he says as we approach the woman who called him. There's the doctor! Hi doctor!

The woman smiles and tells him she is not the doctor but she is glad to meet him.

He plays in the room as we wait.

The PA enters and looks in his ears.

Yep, looks like a tube in his right ear still.

I reiterate that we have a tube in ear wax at home. I'm told that it's probably the one from his left ear. Apparently they can come out of the drum and be stuck in the ear canal. Considering all the wax on the tube, this is probably the case.

His surgeon is called in and she confirms that the tube, indeed, is still in. So we need to schedule the surgery to have it removed.

I hug him a little tighter before another friendly woman escorts K out to pick a prize while I hear the details of the surgery.

He re-enters with 2 more suckers, 2 more stickers, a bottle of bubbles and a ball.

The woman he played games with sticks her head in the door saying she just had to see K one more time and warns me that there are at least 2 women who are plotting to take him home tonight. I tell her that some days I would gladly take them up on that.

His surgery is scheduled for 2 weeks from today. September 21st in the morning. Then he should have only one more check six weeks following. Then we should (hopefully) be able to close this chapter in K's life.

Although the women of West 5 will miss him. He had no less than 10 women fawning over him. Honestly it started to get a bit ridiculous at the end.

When he's a teenager we're getting an unlisted phone number.

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P.S.
Miss M emerged from school with a stuffed penguin that she won from the school fundraiser so she was thrilled, of course.

Haleluiah!

Tonight was K's night to be read to by Craig. (My kids started fighting over who got to be with Daddy at night so we had to institute an every-other-night rule.)

Craig said they were laying in our bed and K handed him this:
(Sorry for the somewhat gross-looking graphic.)

This came out of my ear Daddy.

It's the tube from his right ear. He won't need surgery to remove it! Yippee!

Ear tubes...the saga continues

K had another follow-up and check on his ear tubes today.

The beautiful weather prompted me to park in our church parking lot and K and I walked the 6 blocks to his appointment.

Along the way K chattered amiably, reassuring himself by cheerfully commenting to passing strangers "I getting ears checked!" Several people complimented his cool Thomas the Tank Engine light-up shoes and K agreed "Yeah, cool Thomas!" K wanted to hang out with a pair of medical students who were leaning on a couple of trees.

We entered the building and rode the elevator to the 5th floor where we checked in at the desk before making our way to the waiting area. I had resigned myself that I would be chasing a running boy around the room and away from the elevators where he would likely try to escape at least a half-dozen times.

K, however, had other plans. He behaved like a big boy. We sat and looked at a Fire Engine book for the full 10 minutes until we heard his name called.

He jovially received more compliments on his shoes, and once we were in the exam room, he climbed onto the bench next to me and we looked at a train book together. Soon, he noticed a driving toy attached to the wall in a hidden corner of the room. Politely, he asked "Mommy? I go play that?" Noticing an expensive-looking piece of equipment directly in the path between us and the toy I tentatively asked "Do you think you can get over there without touching the machine?"

K enthusiastically assured me that he could and carefully stepped to the toy. While he was quietly amusing himself "driving the tractor" it occurred to me how much he had changed since our first visit to the ENT department.

He was 10 1/2 months old when he underwent the ear tube insertion. He was on antibiotics almost non-stop from December 2004-June 2005. He'd finish a course of treatment and within 2 days he would be up all night screaming in pain. Another ear infection. More drugs.

He was not crawling. He didn't smile much unless he was a day or two into his antibiotics. The day after the surgery, he started crawling. The fluid in his ears had robbed him of some of his hearing and his balance.

We had to mark his ears with a marker to signify where the doctors were supposed to perform the surgery. He looked like he had little purple earrings.

The tubes have been in for almost 2 years. He's had one ear infection since then and we only knew about it because he had some other symptoms of illness at the same time. His ear did not hurt.

He smiles constantly. Unless you really tick him off. He runs. He rides a bicycle with training wheels. He sits quietly beside his Mommy in the waiting room.

He is a big boy suddenly, yet he is still my baby boy.

The physician's assistant checked his ears and announced that the tube was no longer in the first ear. The tube is still in his right ear. At this point it needs to be removed since it hasn't fallen out, but she gave us some options. Once it is removed surgically, they need to put a patch over the area where the tube was, and it needs to stay dry for 2 weeks (no swimming). So the option that we have chosen is that we wait until the end of August, do another audiogram and check if the tube is still in. If it hasn't fallen out by then, he will need to go to surgery.

I'm hopeful that it will fall out on its own over the summer with all the little big boy activities that he'll be doing.

K's ENT visit today.

My son had yet another visit to the ENT floor of the Mayo Clinic today.

He's had ear tubes since he was 10 months or so and had either 5 ear infections in a row or one long one for 3 months...however you want to look at it. Since the tubes were put in he's had one ear infection. Totally worth the screaming that we endured as he emerged from the anesthesia after the surgery.

Every 4 months we go and K first visits the audiologist. Before he had the tubes, his hearing was not in the normal range. Since, every visit he's been in the normal range.

Today he entertained the woman who was helping. He was supposed to hit this "button" every time he heard the noise. (The button was a basketball tap light.) Instead of hitting the button, K would just announce "I heard it!" The woman would say "Okay! Hit the button!" and K would smack that button as hard as he could.

And so on every time the noises sounded.

After he hit the button a toy would turn on in a box off his left shoulder (a bear banging cymbols) or right shoulder (Bert and Ernie driving a covered wagon...with a horse pulling it).

He started to request the toy... "Now bear! Do bear!" "Do Ernie!"

So next time he goes, he graduates to using the earphones instead.