There was no blog entry yesterday because we were at the hospital getting Ally’s ear tubes removed.  She had them put in at age 2 and they never fell out like they’re supposed to (usually 6 months to 1 year) so we had to schedule surgery for them to remove them.  It’s a quick process (10-15 minutes) but it is surgery and she’s placed under anesthesia so it does involve your standard anxiety about your child for any kind of surgery.

I bring this all up because I was dreading yesterday ever since we scheduled the surgery a few weeks ago.  Her ENT doctor saw the tube still in one ear and couldn’t see past the wax in the other.  We had agonized even putting the tubes in for obvious reasons but it was a last-resort kind of thing when her ears simply couldn’t drain the fluid when she was two for a year straight and the doctor said her hearing was as if she were underwater in a pool.  The tubes did immediate wonders and she hasn’t had an ear infection since then.

Anyway, what made me dread this (even though it’s minor) surgery was an image I just can’t shake out of my head.  They put us in the room where she would be taken to post-surgery and when I saw my daughter unconscious being wheeled on a hospital bed down the hallway, it freaked me out internally.  Even though I knew she was fine and simply was sedated, it was too close to it resembling her being wheeled down the hallway dead on a stretcher.  I simply have never been able to shake that image out of my head and I really didn’t want to go through it again.  In the big picture, we are extremely lucky to have two healthy children but you never stop worrying about them and never want them to be in pain, no matter how temporary.

Yesterday had a happy outcome though.  The doctor came into the waiting room and told us both of her tubes had fallen out at some point in the past few weeks so no actual surgery was performed.  They simply cleaned out all the excess wax and she was already awake (albeit groggy) when we first saw her.  No actual surgery meant no pain and no follow-up appointments so it truly was a happy day, minus her puking in my car on the way home as a result of the effects of the anesthesia.

Of course, this story can’t be finished unless there’s some smarmy, tongue-in-cheek comment by her dad.  While I was thrilled that the outcome was as good as it was yesterday, the bottom line is that we paid a $500 deductible for a glorified Q-tip session!  After waiting over two years for those darn tubes to fall out, they didn’t become dislodged until the 3 weeks between her last doctor visit and the day of the surgery.  What rotten timing!  If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would point fingers at the doctor for scheduling surgery that’s unnecessary, knowing that the tubes were already out.  Make no mistake, that $500 is being added to the bill I’ll be presenting to her on her 18^th birthday. 

The bottom line is I’m glad she can take baths and go into pools without ear plugs for the first time since she was 1.  She can also swim in lakes and oceans now if she wants to with no ear protection.  I’m so happy for her that I broke my unwritten blog rule about writing too deeply about family life.  Don’t worry - your bitter and wizened curmudgeon will return on Monday.  Until then, there will be a grin on my face.