my sweet boys: Can You Hear Me Now?

Last Thursday we decided Teague needed tubes in his ears. It was a decision that I've tried to put off hoping things would improve. Since they didn't, I was determined to get Teague tubes as soon as possible. Our pediatrician's office made a referral (which was marked "priority"). I had requested the most known pediatric otolaryngologist (is that a word?) in our area. We had actually seen him back in January when Teague was suffering from reflux.
I received a call on Friday (while at Target, our second home) that he was scheduled with the doctor for the following Wednesday. The referral lady was so sweet. She offered to call back and try to get me in sooner with a different doctor, but since we were talking about surgery on my baby I wanted to stick with the best. As a side note, my pediatrician agrees that this doctor is good, but also says, there are a lot of good doctors. Teague had also slept through the night the night before, which made waiting till Wednesday not sound so bad. Then Saturday night came. Teague was so uncomfortable, awake for most of the night and we were both exhausted the next day. Sunday night was a repeat of Saturday and Monday morning in complete exhaustion I called our peds office right at opening to see if the referral lady could get us in sooner with another doctor. I requested a doctor that two friends had used and loved figuring it was such a routine surgery that I'm sure my baby would be fine.
I got a call back about fifteen minutes later saying I had an appointment that afternoon at 1:30 (they also mentioned that the original appointment wasn't for Wednesday but for Friday instead, which made me very very glad I'd called for an earlier appointment). This, of course, was wonderful, the only problem is that Neland finishes with Amazing Athletes after school at 1:30. I had a couple options, have Chris go to school and they could play on the playground while I took Teague to his appointment (twenty minutes away) and then go pick up Neland - again since we only have one car that can accommodate car seats. The thought of Chris having to sweat it out on the playground in his office attire was enough to put this as my last choice. My other thought was to have him skip Amazing Athletes, pick him up at 1 and drag him to the appointment as well. One other thought, ask my friend Laura to pick up Neland. Laura's daughter is one of Neland's friends and goes to his school. Plus Laura lives nearby and has two car seats in her car already because she has a first grader. I sent the text to her, and got a reply right away that it wouldn't be a problem. While I was very excited to have Neland taken care of, I have to admit a little freak out happened in my head. I've haven't left him with a friend since he was probably four months old (unless I've forgotten some times with all my lack of sleep). My other freak out was about him riding in the car with someone else. My sweet friend (without even knowing about my freak out) offered to turn her daughter's car seat rear facing since Neland is still rear facing (I didn't ask her to, he'll probably be turned around in a few months anyway). Of course, everything was fine and Neland could not have been more excited to be with his friend (and he hasn't said anything about riding differently, which I totally expected).
Okay, so back to the appointment. We met with the doctor for about ten minutes. He agreed tubes were the way to go since his infections were resistant to antibiotics. The nurse, who was obliviously not feeling my desperation, told me that this doctor does surgery on Tuesdays and it was too late to get him in tomorrow. Tears were starting to sprout as I thought of my little man suffering for another 8 days as well as none of us sleeping for another 8 days. It has been five months of dealing with these infections and another 8 days just seemed absolutely impossible. But again, no sympathy from the nurse. It was too late for insurance approval and too late for pre-op instructions. I was given my schedule for surgery on the 10th and sent off to test Teague's hearing.
The hearing test was probably the least impressive thing I've ever seen. I sat in a room with Teague on my lap. The room had two speakers in opposite corners and on top of the speakers was a toy that would make noise, light up and move after the speakers made a noise. There was also a window in the room that let us see the lady administering the hearing test. Teague loved the toys on top of the speakers and he also loved waving to the lady through the window (sometimes she even got a two handed wave). He was much more interested in waving than listening. When we finished, she said she felt bad she'd stopped waving back but she was worried it was mess up the results. The results did say he had a mild hearing loss, but this was expected with the infection and fluid in his ears (and all the interest in waving). We'll have it tested again after tubes (although I'm pretty sure I'll get a referral to a place that only tests hearing).
I headed to pick up Neland, then home, put Teague down for a nap, turned the tv on for Neland (I had some important calls to make) and got on the phone with our referral lady. I told her she was talking to a desperate mother and I had a request but if it was totally crazy to just let me know. I found out that the doctor we'd originally scheduled with had surgeries on Wednesday and Friday. If I could just get Teague seen by him before Wednesday then maybe I could get him scheduled for Friday. Sweetly, she said she'd make the call and see what happened. She called back about ten minutes later saying she'd left a message for the nurse of the doctor I saw today. In my head I thought man, that's pointless, the nurse truly had no sympathy for me. The referral lady also said she was leaving at 4 (it was 3:50) so she'd ask the nurse to call me directly. Then she said she called my pediatrician's nurse and told her what was going on. At 4 I received a call from the pediatrician's nurse (are you confused yet) telling me she'd called the nurse I saw today and asked for an appointment with another doctor at any time to try and get me in sooner. She'd also asked that the nurse call me directly. I'm sure the nurse at the ENT's office was not thrilled with me. I was convinced that I was going to have do some calling myself to try and find another ENT to see Teague. At 4:30 the ENT nurse called (after saying who she was I did apologize for all the phone calls hoping to soften her up a bit). She said that Teague was put on the surgery schedule for tomorrow and I'd get a call from pre-op in about ten minutes. She also said she needed to call our insurance to pre-approve (I did mention us just paying out of pocket in desperation, but she said she didn't think that would happen). With fingers crossed for pre approval, I got our pre-op instructions and got things ready for the next day.
Teague, as usual, woke up all night long, only after 2am I could not nurse him so there really wasn't a chance of getting him back to sleep. We played all night long. At 6:00 we woke up Neland and by 6:30 we headed up to the surgery center. We arrived at 7:00 and waited till 8:15 before anyone called us (Chris was very frustrated that they wanted us there 2 hours before surgery, keeping two children entertained in a packed waiting room was very trying). Teague made a friend in the waiting area. Some poor dad was the chosen person who Teague would carry toys too. Luckily he didn't seem to mind. We were called back to the pre-op area and Teague drank the "happy juice" as they called it. He was not happy to drink it. We spoke with the nurses that would tend to him, our doctor, and the anesthesiologist. Everyone was very nice and Teague was feeling the medicine and then it was time for him to go back. He cried for just a minute as they walked back and Chris, Neland and I headed to the waiting room. In the waiting room they had a big screen displaying patients first names. They were color coded so that you knew who was in pre-op, who was currently in surgery and who was in recovery. Red meant currently in surgery. Teague was red. It made everything so real and I think all we did was sit there and pray for our little man and the doctors with him (until Neland whined about being hungry and Chris ran to the car for money). After ten minutes, our doctor came out saying the surgery went great and a nurse would come get us once he started to wake up. When we did see him, he was crying and his eyes were still closed. Of course I scooped him up and as he woke up I was able to nurse him. About twenty minutes later with a grumpy baby, we headed home. Chris picked up Panera for us and Teague ate, and ate, and ate. He did well not eating for so long, but he was definitely hungry. Then Teague and I napped for about four hours. We are very hopeful that tonight will be a great night of sleep for everyone!

Okay so you made it through the LONG story - here are the pictures: