Ear Tubes

This last winter was long.  And I mean REALLY long, especially for Alexis.  This poor girl had 5 ear infections in 5 months.  Sound excessive?  Yeah, we thought so, too.  So did her pediatrician.  We were in his office so much that Alexis actually got really excited when we'd tell her we were going to the doctor.  Anyway, the pediatrician referred us to Dr Ence, who is an ENT.  We saw him a few weeks ago, and he confirmed what we had been expecting....Alexis needed tubes in her ears.  She also has gigantic tonsils, just like her daddy, but we'll worry about that another time.  So we got her surgery scheduled, and were on our way.

Alexis loved sitting in the big chair!

Yesterday was the big day!  We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 am, which seemed really early, but I was happy that it wasn't later since she hadn't had anything to eat since the night before.  She got a little hesitant when they called her back to take her blood pressure and stuff, but all of that was righted with a couple princess stickers.  They showed us to our room, and on the bed was a little handmade doll with a hospital gown, and a really cute pillowcase on her pillow.  The nurse told us that those had been donated and that we could take them home with us when we left!  That helped Alexis out a ton, and she happily changed into her "pajamas" and we lounged and watched cartoons for a little while.  Dr. Ence came in right before they took her back, and promised to have her back to me in about 30 minutes.  When the nurse started rolling her bed out of the room, Alexis started wailing....but that nurse was AMAZING at distracting her, and the wailing only lasted about 10 seconds.  

True to his word, Alexis was back in the room with me exactly 30 minutes after she'd left!  Since they put her under general anesthetic, I had expected her to be really ornery and whiny, but she wasn't!  She was actually very calm and quiet.  All of the nurses were so surprised!  It wasn't long at all until she was drinking grape juice and eating graham crackers, and we were ready to go!  Instead of heading straight home, we went upstairs to see Amanda and Aspen.  Alexis ended up falling asleep on my lap for over an hour, so I just stayed there chatting with Amanda while she slept.  Once she woke up, she was back to her usual talkative, cheerful self!

All ready for surgery!