Ear Surgery

So today Lil Bit had a tympanoplasty* on her right ear.  This is a surgery we have known was needed for the last 4 years.  We have just been waiting for her to get bigger so that the surgery would be easier.  We had an appointment last Spring Break(as we have had every year for 4 years) to give the ear a look and decide if it was time yet for surgery or not.  This year she said she was ready so here we are.  We were on the road headed for LR before 6:30.

We arrived just over an hour later.  This is my "no picture mom!" look. Hahaha

The took her back around 8:15 to be prepped and questioned by at least 4 people as to what procedure was being done.  I get it tho....its a security thing.  I would be more than pissed if they operated on the wrong thing.  She was so calm and answered everything like a big girl.  She really was ready for this.  As she told me before "God's got this" and she really does know He is always with us.

Surgery lasted just over an hour before she was sent to recovery.  In the meantime, I read Bobby Bones Bare Bones book. Bobby makes so many references to things that really made me laugh out loud...I totally get it! I listen to the Bobby Bones show on KSSN every morning and just love the crew. If you don't listen, you don't know what you're missin!  Anyway,  I only made it to chapter 3 in the book but so far so good! 

So about 9:30 we were told we could go see her in recovery. Her face was splotchy red. Her little ear was swollen and bleeding and she had an iv in her hand.  She has very sensitive skin so every place there had been a lead or tape turned red. She looked rough!  She was still groggy and just wanted to sleep.  So here it is about 10 o'clock and I still haven't had anything to eat or drink.  Not totally unusual but I guess on days like these I should be sure to eat.   The nurse took Lil Bit's iv out and that's when I started to feel nauseous.  I asked Baby J to go get the peanut butter crackers out of the car as I went to sit in the chair next to the bed.  Next thing I knew, I was getting tunnel vision and the surrounding shuffling and beeps was going mute.  Dr G was sitting at a desk nearby so I called for him and said I think I'm going to pass out.....and then I was gone!  Not for long tho.  I was coming back to around the time J got back with the crackers.  Dr G said my diastolic was so low he couldn't feel it in my wrist. Uh Woah!   And then Lil Bit sits straight up out of a sleep to vomit.  I still cannot even stand yet but no worries, there were plenty more barf episodes to follow I could clean  up.  After a cold towel to the forehead, some coke and crackers I was back in business.  (Just for the record, if you hear I pass out all the time, I really don't.  I think I have only passed out 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years!) Lil Bit finally woke enough to get dressed and be moved to a chair.  Here she sits with her barf bag. Poor thing.

So by 10:30 we were headed home.  She really is a tough girl. 

*Tympanoplasty is the medical term for eardrum repair, to reconstruct a perforated tympanic membrane(eardrum). Tissue is grafted for the tragus(small cartilaginous lobe of skin in front of the ear. (She has 2-3 stitches where the cartilage was grafted.  This is where most of her pain is coming from I think.) An absorbable gelatin sponge is placed under the eardrum to support the graft. The graft is then inserted underneath the remaining eardrum remnant, which is folded back onto the perforation to provide closure. More gel is added on top to hold it all in place.

She had two sets of tubes so I suspect that her perforation is due to the hole not closing after the tube came out.