Lessons from myringotomy

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Commentary by Heather Kestian

Six ear infections and seventy sleepless nights later, we got a referral to an ear, nose, and throat doctor. We happily went to the ENT and learned everything we needed to learn about how the ear works. After the lesson, it seemed appropriate to sing “the ear bone’s connected to the nose bone, the nose bone’s connected to the throat bone.”

Myringotomy, or the surgery to place little tubes of heaven in my child’s ears, was the new plan. I spoke to several friends about this change of plans and they all proclaimed that this would clear up all of the problems.

Yeah, right. This has to be an overstatement of everyone’s perception. Nothing has a 100-percent rate of fixing problems, yet every single person had the same thing to say — this is a life-changing surgery.

The day of the surgery came, and true to form, my little one’s ears had yet another infection. The doctor reported that the surgery went well and the tubes were placed. We went home and waited. We put our little one in his bed and 30 minutes passed.

He did not wake up.

What is going on here?

Another hour passed and he continued to sleep.

In fact, he slept through the night, waking only once to eat.

Shut the front door! My child is sleeping, soundly?

I have spent some time reflecting on the past eighty days (not that I am counting the number of sleepless nights on a calendar) and the meaning behind this surgery. While I call these ear tubes our early Christmas miracle, the larger lesson has not been lost. We are truly blessed to have had the opportunity for this small medical device to make big changes in our son’s life. He can sleep, is comfortable, and will not have hearing loss or structural damage to his ears because of multiple ear infections.

For the record, everyone was right about myringotomy. These tiny tubes are game changers!

Heather Kestian is a Fishers resident and mother. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism, as well as a master’s degree in education. Her family moved to Fishers in 2010.


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