Surgery Successful

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie is now the proud recipient of two brand new ear tubes, at the expense of her adenoids.

Originally, the surgery was scheduled for 2:00. So the plan was for her to go to school in the morning, and for me to arrive at the hospital at about 2:30 or so before she woke up. However, on the morning of the surgery, they called and insisted we move the surgery up to 9:30 a.m.

So I missed the entire thing, but from what Sara said, I’m glad I wasn’t there. Evie woke up in a bad mood. This was expected, but quite a bit different than her reaction the last time. She was so angry with Sara, that she was actually damaging her already sore throat with her screaming. She was mouthy, and surly, and the only thing keeping her from swearing was that she didn’t know any swear words. She was also coughing like a chain smoker, further irritating her throat, and eventually needed a breathing treatment.

Ollie was such a good little brother, sitting quietly with her surgery doll in his lap and waiting patiently. He was also very concerned about the baby that came into recovery while they were there, wanting to check and be sure he was alright every few minutes. He was at the very height of 2 1/2 year old behavior, and impressed the nurses. For his efforts, he was rewarded with apple juice, a popsicle and 8 cookies. The funny thing was, several people asked if he and Evie were twins (I’m guessing probably based more on his size than his proper behavior).

By the time I saw her, she was pretty much back to normal. Her voice was a little scratchy, but that was about it. We snuggled under a blanket on the couch and read Christmas books until my voice was the one that was in danger. She was eating like normal, acting like normal, and didn’t complain one iota about pain.

Most importantly, her hearing was already *significantly* improved. I made sure to keep my voice pitched well below what she could hear only yesterday, and she had no problem hearing me. We even tried some whispering. She isn’t back to 100%, but it is night and day better. This is such a huge relief, you have no idea. Unfortunately, it means I’m going to have to get used to little pitchers having big ears again.

Certainly, seeing her hearing so much better with practically no recovery time really makes me feel like this was the right decision. Now we just wait and see if this helps her stay healthy.

The Breathing Treatment

/ Shane / 3 Comments

The hits just keep on coming for poor Evie.

We were taking Oliver for a follow up appointment for his ear infection, but you would have sworn the appointment was for Evie. She was hacking and coughing every few seconds the entire time we were there, while Oliver joked and played around. “Do you mind if I look at her?” asked the doctor. “No, no, she’s fine, just a cold,” we said. After a few minutes, the doctor asked again. “Well, it’s probably not necessary,” we responded. More uncontrollable hacking and coughing from Evie. Finally, the doctor just plain insisted.

She had Evie checked in and did an exam. After listening to her lungs, she decided she wanted to get Evie a nebulizer.

I’m not going to lie, this freaked me out. Growing up, my sister had pretty severe asthma, and she still deals with it to this day. I have strong memories of seeing her in the hospital, looking so small and pale, resting in an oxygen tent, unable to get enough air into her lungs. She was practically connected to her nebulizer, doing a breathing treatment several times a day, every day.

Asthma, allergies, and eczema are all related, and they’re all in my family in spades. There isn’t a one of us that doesn’t have one or more of these afflictions. Obviously I gifted my son with the eczema gene, so in my mind it seemed entirely likely that I gifted my daughter with asthma.

I remember my sister once did a school science fair project on asthma. In order to show what it felt like to have an asthma attack, you were supposed to breath through one of those little coffee-stirring straws for 30 seconds. This is something that has really suck with me for my entire life. 30 seconds is such a short amount of time, and yet the feeling of suffocation was absolutely terrifying. Ten seconds in and I felt like clawing at my throat. I imagined how many times my sister must have felt that desperate panic, and how she couldn’t just remove the straw and draw in a breath when she couldn’t take it anymore.

Not something I wished for my daughter.

Evie was a little worried about the breathing treatment, but that was partially our fault. I was caught up in my own thing, so it never occurred to me to actually explain what was going on until Evie, almost in tears, leaned over and asked in a small, quiet voice, “Is that going to turn my lungs black?” She thought we were making her smoke!

The doctor doesn’t think she has asthma, but she couldn’t rule it out either. However, her theory was that Evie’s airways were reacting to the fact that she has had 6 colds in 12 weeks, and her lungs just haven’t had time to recover in between. Certainly something was going on, because within 30 seconds of doing the nebulizer, Evie’s cough magically disappeared. They gave us an inhaler to take home, and we’ve used it pretty regularly. Again, this brought a lot of flash-backs to my sister, and in fact, Rachael used her inhaler in front of Evie to inspire her.

It seems like Evie’s lungs have now recovered, and she’s gone 30 seconds in between colds, which is a record for her. Hopefully this was a transitory thing, and not something she’ll have to deal with her entire life.

That poor girl just can’t catch a break!

Quote Monday is not in the mood

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Ollie, pointing to two statues of cardinals: “Look at those angry birds.”

He has a point, though I’ve never thought about it before. But how does he know what Angry Birds is?

Me: “Are you sure you went pee pee? The water’s not yellow.”
Ollie: “It’s a different kind of pee pee.”

::Evie having an attitude problem::
Sara: “Everyday we have the same problem here. I want you to think about it, and tell me what the problem is.”
Evie, snottily: “I know what the problem is! Sometimes I’m in the mood, and sometimes I’m not!”

Sara: “Well, I have some bad news for you. Your surgery is scheduled.”
Evie: “Mama, why did you say that was bad news?? That’s good news!”

I wish I had these when I was a kid

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Remember those little army men you used to play with when you were little? I used to love those things, but what could you really do with them? Not much. And honestly, is it really appropriate to have kids waging little wars? Probably not.

UNLESS those army men were doing something a little more constructive than fighting wars, such as fighting zombies. Thanks to ThinkGeek you can now get scaled down zombie and zombie fighter army men.

Not just for kids either: now you can practice your zombie plans easily and accurately. You want to talk about constructive toys that can really teach your kids something worthwhile…

Huh? What?

/ Shane / 5 Comments

Unfortunately, my daughter’s hearing is deteriorating rapidly.

If you’ve spoken to her in the last two weeks, you’ve probably noticed this. It would be really, really hard not to notice. If you are talking to her at a normal tone of voice, she usually can’t hear you well enough to even know you are speaking to her, much less does she actually understand what you are saying. This is absolutely not her fault, but it is very hard not to get frustrated with her. Then something happens to remind you that she is the victim in all of this, like when you say, “Evie! I told you three times to pick this up!” and she says, “Huh?” in such a way that you realize that she never heard you the three times you told her, and then you just feel bad all over again.

It’s not all bad, though, it has led to some funny misunderstandings.

Kid: “I went to a birthday party, and we jumped into a pit of foam.”
Evie, horrified: “A pit of bones??”

I got so used to speaking loudly around her, that I find myself talking loudly to everybody. Several times I found myself shouting to Sara when it was just the two of us alone in the kitchen.

I never really realized how isolating it is to not be able to hear, and how much you miss out on. Oftentimes when she doesn’t hear something, she just lets it go. I don’t know if it’s being a kid, being embarrassed about not hearing, something about her personality, or just the fact that you get tired of asking everybody to repeat everything all the time. I’m very thankful that she’s only in preschool, and thus is not really having instruction per say at school. I can clearly see how quickly one would fall behind academically.

Anyway, we could clearly see that she was experiencing some hearing loss, but we had her tested anyway. Her hearing showed normal to mild loss in one year, and mild to moderate loss in the other. It seems to have gotten a lot worse since then.

The doctors believe that it is temporary, and due to a large build up of fluid in her ears that doesn’t seem to drain, so they’ve recommended a third round of ear tubes (you can read about round 1 and round 2). The idea is that the fluid would be able to drain through the tubes, and her hearing would go back to normal. Long term, the hope is always that she will grow enough that her ears will begin to drain normally on their own, without requiring help. It hasn’t worked so far, but then again, third time was a charm with me and ear tubes when I was little.

So hopefully everything goes well and she will be able to re-join the conversation (side note, not being able to hear apparently doesn’t impede your ability to talk).

At least Ollie’s ears are okay, right? Wrong.

We always assumed that Ollie had no problems with his ears, because he had never had any ear infections. However, you only know your child has ear infections if he says he has ear infections, and if he happens to have the pain tolerance of a UFC fighter on PCP, then he probably just doesn’t mention it. Imagine our surprise, then, when he did finally complain about an ear ache, and the doctor found evidence of “chronic ear infections”.

Perhaps he inherited daddy’s ears after all, but just forgot to mention it.