Getting to her fifth ear infection just wasn’t fun for her or a great way to spend time taking her to the doctor for a little lady, so basically we had 1 option left which was taking her to a specialist. We took her to a specialist a few weeks ago and the doctor was nice enough but really within 5-10 minutes and $200 later (I’m in the wrong business) it was decided that within the space of 5 months she has had 5 ear infections so with my mathematical ability – that is well lots really! The prognosis was either have grommets inserted or she could go on for another year and a half having ear infections. Hmm I’m sure that is beneficial for her, so we threw caution into the wind and decided on the lesser of two evils – grommets.

“What are grommets” I hear you say! Well think of a very small tube that gets inserted in to the middle ear, and is generally used when children have ear infections and therefore cant drain away excess fluid!

We had health insurance of which I recommend for all parents with little one’s especially if they are going to day care and will become in contact with other children on a regular basis. If you have had only 1 or 2 over a period of 6 months then perhaps homeopathy will be more beneficial but it was becoming a regular occurrence for the poor little lady.

On the last week we really noticed her standing wasn’t very well balanced, and guess what she caught another ear infection, which made 6 wha hoo!!!!

We were happy to be taking her to the hospital. We got sick of giving her antibiotics to try and cure it also, I wonder what it does to their little bodies. Now the procedure itself only takes literally minutes, and it was advised to bring her in early, of which we got to the hospital at 7am, and basically by 7.45am she went into theatre and by 8am she was back in her room. They do a general anaesthetic of which I wasn’t that happy about but otherwise it couldn’t be done, they are only under for around 5 minutes – insertion into the middle ear, grommets inserted and done! They wheeled her back in, she was unsettled for around another 1 hour, she was a little sore and upset and we tried to calm her down, but by 10am we were home. Thanks very much that will be $1600 cha ching!!

Post operation care is very simple, no getting water/fluid into the ears, not swimming for a little bit and no spas or hot water for as long as she has the grommets in her ears. We have to make sure she finishes her ear drops also. She is now hearing a lot better and stands a lot more stronger on her feet.

Looking back on it I would do it again – it’s a fairly simple safe procedure and around 20% of patients have problems with them, but this can be fixed. Go with what you think is right for your child and yourself at the end of the day!

Good luck

- Scott

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