My Experience

Our nine-month-old son was having recurrent ear infections in both ears. His doctor recommended having the fluid drained.

The preparation before the surgery was minimal. The main thing was that our son couldn’t eat or drink for a number of hours before the procedure, but the procedure was scheduled first thing in the morning so even this requirement was easy to satisfy.

At the hospital we were first issued wrist tags — all three of us – and then my wife and I answered a nurse’s questions for about twenty minutes. We then changed our son into a hospital gown. I also put some scrubs on because I was going to carry our son into the pre-op and operating rooms. Only one parent was allowed to go into the OR, so my wife remained in a waiting room.

When it was time, I carried my son to pre-op, and then a short time later into the OR. Once there, I sat down and held my son in my arms while the anesthesiologist gently placed a mask over my son’s mouth. Within 30 seconds my son was asleep. I then put him on the table and the surgical team, about five people, took over. I returned to the waiting room and changed back into my own clothes and started to describe to my wife what had just happened.

Shortly after (and before I could had finished fully explaining), we received a call saying that my wife could come down to the recovery room to wait with our son until he woke up. This part was fairly brief and uneventful.

There was little to do in the way of recovery: just a few doses of Tylenol and a good night’s rest. Our son slept well that night (as did his parents!) for the first time in several months, and has remained a good sleeper in the several months since. The only ongoing issue is that we need to keep water out of his ears, but even this is much easier than we had expected. For us, this procedure was not very stressful for the patient or parents.