Medical Procedures

So we have been through our fair share of medical procedures with our children. We are pretty experienced at the entire process and usually very thorough with our questions of the surgeons and doctors before we make the decision to move forward with surgery.

Aliza had open heart surgery at three weeks of age, then had tubes 2 times and a procedure to open her tear ducts. She had tonsils and adenoids removed when she was 5 and all procedures have gone well and the recovery has been fine. Trevor had minor procedures like tubes and a sigmoidoscomy when he was one, then he became sick when he was 22 months old and went through bone marrow aspirations, spinal taps, multiple sedated MRI's and daily blood tests. We feel like pros, unfortunately.

So when Aliza's eye doctor tells us that she needs to have a minor procedure to place a tube in her eyes so that they can open up her tear ducts (the previous procedure was not successful) we trust that things will go well and there will not be any side effects. We ask all of the right questions, we are aware that the tubes will be able to be seen and will stay for approximately three months. Everything goes well with the procedure. We have an excellent anesthesiologist and we have made the entire team aware of Alizas previous complications with anesthesia. The procedure is over and we go to the post op meeting room to talk to the doctors. He says all is fine. He continues to tell us that there are a few things that we need to be aware of....

*There will be some bleeding from her nose and eyes as there are stitches in her nose that will dissolve in a few weeks.

*If at any time we see a tube coming out of Alizas eyes about 2-3 inches, don't panic.... this is where my jaw dropped and I realized I did not know what we had gotten ourselves into. The doctor continues and says it is not an emergency, just tape the tube to the bridge of her nose and call him.

Obviously this doctor has not spent enough time with our daughter and does not know that she has quite a bit of sensory defensiveness and would never tolerate a tube hanging out of her eye, let alone tape on her nose. Immediately I began to think about Alizas teachers and school nurse. I could only imagine the fear and shock on the teachers and other students faces when while sitting at circle time they realized that there was a 3" tube hanging out of our daughters eye. To tell a teacher and school nurse not to panic is a total oxymoron. Aliza has been sent to the school nurse for sneezing in class.

At this point both my husband and I looked at each other and began to laugh. This is when we realized that we did not ask all the right questions. We were so consumed with the surgery itself that we never thought about post surgery. We asked the doctor to write a letter to the school, because we knew this would be required and give them the instructions about what to do when the tubes came out because I was certain that it would occur at school.

So after the talk, we take Aliza home and make sure that she does not touch her eyes and constantly make sure that the tubes are where they are supposed to be. All goes well and Aliza even goes back to school three days later, the last day before Thanksgiving break. The teacher says she was nervous, but no one panics and Aliza stays in school all day.

For Thanksgiving my in-laws came to visit. The day before Thanksgiving I had planned to go to Toys R Us for the perfect gift for Aliza that I was certain would be sold out before Christmas. I had one hour before Aliza's friend from school came over for a play date. I did not want to have my mother in law responsible for someone else's child too, so I promised to be home before the friend came. About 5 minutes into my shopping trip, about 2o minutes since I had left the house, my phone rings. It is my mother in law. I immediately know why she is calling. She would never interrupt my free time as she knows how important it is. She calmly tells me that Aliza has a tube hanging out of her eye.... what should she do? Now I had prepared my mother in law for this situation, but never believed that it would happen. I told her where the tape was, and to tape the tube and I would be right home. On my way home I called to the doctors office and was told to come in immediately. I realized that there was something else that I had forgotten to ask... what happens if she pulls on the tube???? (Apparently she could rip her tear duct completely if she pulled too hard, but likely would not pull as it would be painful)

When I got home I was shocked at the sight of my daughter. I had not prepared myself for the how strange Aliza would look with a tube hanging out of her eye. She also had a bloody nose since the tube was stitched inside her nose and the stitch had riped, which is why it was out of her eye. I packed her into the car and she was a trooper. She didn't complain, just cooperated and understood that something was not right with her eye.

When I pulled up to the hospital, I parked outside of the emergency room in the emergency parking. I felt I was justified as my daughter had a tube hanging out of her eye and a bloody nose. She actually looked quite scary if you didn't know why these things were there. As I am leaving my car, the parking attentant tells me that my space is for emergencies only. I told him that I did have an emergency. (He had not seen Aliza at this point.) He continued to inform me that my car would be towed, but he could easily Valet my car. I was quite irritated at this point because this guy was insisting on me not being parked in this space. Finally I gave him the keys to my car, but also told him the dog in the front seat is usually friendly (our Boxer named Chase). At this time he stopped and said "you have a dog in the car?" I said yes, and Aliza turned around and looked at him, he looked at her and almost passed out and then told me to go inside, he would make sure my car was not towed.

In the doctors office they removed the tubes, it was a fairly simple procedure, but very traumatic for Aliza. She was so scared and we had to hold her down while he cut them out of her eyes. I know that she was grateful to have them removed because the entire time they were in she seemed bothered by them. I am not sure what our next step will be with the whole blocked tear ducts thing. We can have the tubes replaced, with a sponge on the end so that they can not come out without a surgery to remove them. One thing I know for certain is that we will be sure to ask questions about post surgery limitations and expectations before we venture into this again.