Grommet Day

It's done. Alice has two little bits of plastic in her ear canal to keep her little tubes open.

We were up before 6 to be at the hospital for 6.30am, with Young Alice being bundled into the car in her jarmies, still a little dozy. Once we had checked in, her usual burst of 7.15am energy kicked in and she ran as much riot as she could within the confined space. Think caged lion and you'd be about there.

This was fixed at around 8am with a quick dose of paracetemol, mixed with a sedative. They wouldn't give us any to bring home. She remained cheerful but got a bit heavy and a little bit calmer, although I do remember asking the nurse when it was going to kick in, so there can't have been a major effect straight away.

Mums are discouraged from going to the pre-op room for the anaesthetic to be administered and although I had steeled myself, when the nurse said it would be traumatic and that they preferred the Dads to do it, I resigned myself to playing about on Facebook in the waiting area, by way of distraction. By all reports, the sedative started to work a little better as time went by, with Alice sitting on Stu's knee in the pre-op area, smiling and muttering things like, "Yes....shopping", "Yes....Dora".... When it came to the general, she recovered her will and had to be held down screaming. Definitely did sound traumatic. Stu was asked to give her a kiss just before she went under. It's real tear in the eye stuff.

About 2 minutes after Stu appeared in the waiting area, the surgeon was hot on his heels, letting us know that it was done and all had been well. She had a cold last week and although she had not presented with any fever or discomfort, (get me, getting all medicinal) , her ears were full of fluid, so they had been drained and the grommets popped in. Not glad that she was brewing up another ear infection, but slightly relieved that her ears were still in need of treatment/intervention and that all this was worth it. It has been a whole 10 weeks since she last had antibiotics so we had thought perhaps she was cured.

When we went to see her, she was pretty miserable because of the heart rate monitor attached to her toe but otherwise fine. Really happy to see her new Iggle Piggle and her new Night Garden book set again, she gradually calmed down and we were all pleased to get back to the room and away from the other kids who were also waking up in a fairly bad mood.

Alice needed to eat to show the nurse that she was OK, so she duly set to this task with gusto. If you look to the right of the first picture, you can see the discarded custard/yoghurt/jelly pots.

She decided Dad might like some too.

She discovered the fridge and kept leading one of us down the corridor to get her more jelly. It would have been cute if she didn't keep yelling her new favourite gag, "Allie don't like Mummy. Allie don't like Daddy either" [hysterical giggles]. I'm sure the other post-operated-on patients thought it was hilarious.

She was discharged at last around 11am and we gratefully gave up trying to entertain her in a confined space. At home she ate lunch and slept as usual. The afternoon was spent running about, shopping, stealing Stu's milkshake and playing at the park. No discernible effects at all.

So we're back onto preparing her for the new room at daycare next week. Phew. Thank goodness that's over.