Gabby's First Surgery

Gabby had her first surgery today. I think it was harder on me than it was on her, isn't that how it is.  We were scheduled for her surgery to put her ear tubes in at 8am. We had to be there at 7. She wasn't allowed to have anything to eat (solids) past 11pm the night before, no Breast Milk past 3:00am and no clear liquids past 5am. So I had set my alarm to go off at 2:30am to let her nurse as long as she wanted.  I put her to bed last night and she ended up waking up around 10:30. I nursed her and she slept and woke up like clockwork exactly at 2:30. It worked out perfect. I was hoping that she was going to sleep until 6:30 as we had to leave at 6:45. but no such luck. I was up at 5:15 and she was up around 5:30.

She did pretty well until I had to pump and she couldn't eat. Mike did great walking with her, and of course as soon as she was with mom she was fine. We arrived at Childrens Hospital and let me say they do an awesome job! It really makes a difference I think that they only have children there. After check in the nurse came and got us and Nurse Ann (Our intake nurse) was WONDERFUL!! She was great! Gabby was pretty easy going getting her blood pressure checked, temp & oxygen level. We changed her into her cute PJ's and then we were allowed to let her play in the common area. There were a lot of little ones there and she got to play with a few of them. One 14 month old girl was there and they had a good time sharing toys.

When kids are 10 months or older their parents are allowed to go back with them into a transition room. So because she was younger the nurse and the anesthesiologist came and got her. The hardest part of the whole experience. Of course that is when she choose to be upset and only want mom. So she was screaming and crying...I almost cried myself at that point.

We were led into the family waiting room and really by the time we got settled in Dr. Rhodes was already out there. it was only a 10 minute procedure. He said that it all went well. I was a bit surprised to see him and thought she hadn't had it done yet. He said that her left ear was pretty bad, it was filled with a LOT of pus. TMI Warning - Skip ahead if you are squeamish. He said he cut into her ear to put in the tub and suck out the fluid and a TON of pus came pouring out. So we are (and he is) hoping that this will improve her hearing a lot and also her temperament as this was probably causing her some pain. Might be why we have been having so much trouble getting her to sleep at night. So I am really hoping this will help with that.

About 10 minutes after Dr. Rhodes came to see us, she was waking up so we walked back to the recovery room and she was awake but out of it. They okay'd me to nurse her, so I did that. and she pretty much slept the entire time she nursed. We changed her and then left for the pharmacy. We filled her prescription and headed home. I had a little cuddlebug on my hands. She cuddled on me and slept and we put in her ear drops. She slept for about an hour.

By the time she woke up to eat again she was back to normal and wanting to play. She took another really good nap this afternoon. We had a play date with my good friend Jessica and her two kids, Evan and Emma. We went for a walk to the park by Jess' house and then played in her back yard. Emma and Gabby had a great time! Thanks Jess for letting us come over.

She is now sleeping peacefully in her bed. I gave her ear drops again and gave her some ibuprofen. Hopefully she will have a good night sleep and no more ear infections!

Doctors

Followers of my blog know that since Peanut was born we have been to a lot of doctors. When she was two weeks old we had to bring her to a cardiologist because she had a heart murmur. Then it was a bunch of pediatrician visits and lactation consultant visits because of her eating, or lack there of - since she would scream every time she ate. In January we started the doctor visits for her ear infections. 5 weeks of antibiotics and visits. We also at that time started going to the Chiropractor. Our chiropractor was great, but she is now on maternity leave.

So when this last round of ear infections happened, we decided to try a new chiropractor and made an appt with the ENT to have Gabby evaluated.We have gone to 3 visits thus far and I have to say that this past one really turned me off. Last Friday Gabby was sent home from daycare with a 103.5 fever. so pretty close to the danger zone of when you have to bring your kid to the ER. So I called the doctor and in we went. We met with one of the other pediatricians (not Gabby's regular doc), she suggested another round of antibiotics. So we did that. We also decided to keep the chiro appointments. After having that high of a fever it freaked me out. At the doctors appointment they did do a strep test and also a blood test to see if it was viral or not to see check where the source of the fever was coming from. But since it went away a day after the antibiotics, she said that it was from the ear infections.

So today we went to the ENT and met with Dr. Rhodes. He looked at Gabby and said that since she is having the history of these, that summer most likely will not help with her ears. If she was 2 or 3 he said it might, but since she is so little he didn't want to chance hurting her hearing. Since if she has trouble hearing she might have trouble with her language development. She is talking a ton, so I don't think it's a problem but if she has more ear infections it might be and I don't want to chance that.

We went to the chiropractor appointment and I have to say that I have never felt more judged as a parent for my decision. It's a small shop, newly opened and there are two chiropractors, an intern and an receptionist. I was the only person in there, so I was talking to all four of them about how she was doing while I was filling out a form (which makes no sense when you are filling it out for an infant). and I said well she is having to have tubes put in. and the Chiro goes "does she HAVE to have tubes put in" and I said well I suppose she doesn't have to. The receptionist then says "So what are you going to do?" And I said well we are going to have them put in. the look on her face was like "OH MY GOD what are you doing to your child, how could do you do that to her."

So this totally put me off, I wanted to walk out right there, but wanted to hear what she had to say. While she was adjusting Gabby she proceeded to tell me that she can't tell me what to do (although her judgement in the waiting area was pretty much telling me what to do) and she can only tell me what she would do as a parent.She said that we are just getting started (although we have been going to the chiro since February), and that we have so much more to work through with her.

I wanted to say to her, well you aren't the one getting up with her every 2 to 3 hours because she can't sleep at night, you aren't the one taking off of work all the time and having to work at night because you have all these doctors appointments to go to, you aren't the one seeing your baby girl in pain at night because she can't sleep except on you and you aren't the one that is the mom, so no you can't tell me what to do and what I am choosing to do to help my little cuddlebug is have a 15 minute procedure done because the natural stuff right now is not working. maybe it will be in the future, but it's not working now.

At this rate I will be taking her back to Hopkins Health and Wellness to the chiro's there and skipping this new place...every other month or so to help her with her alignment, but not going two times a week to help with her ear infections.

This is our right as parents to do what we feel is right and I don't think that it's the right of doctors to judge parents. I could see if it was something that was totally endangering her health, like if she had a life threatening illness or something and I was choosing not to do the treatment, but for this I think she should have backed off a bit.