TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF EAR INFECTIONS

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By my estimate, my daughter has had 42 billion ear infections in her life.

Since she was an infant, her ears have decided to be constant sources of fun and excitement in our lives. At each stage of her life, we quickly learned when her ears were infected. As an infant, she would tug at her ears. When she was a toddler, she would bite. Seriously. My wife would come in with teeth marks on her forearm, holding a flailing child, and say, "Wow! She drew blood. Must be a double infection." Now, as Allie approaches her fourth birthday, she has taken the approach of waiting until about 1 in the morning and then shrieking in pain.

Let me tell you, you have not had fun until you wake from a deep slumber by the sounds of your child wailing and then, in all of your disoriented glory, try to traverse a floor covered with a Strawberry Shortcake tea party.

When she would wake in the middle of the night, it was pretty gut-wrenching. Tears would stream down her face, and she would collapse in your arms, whimpering, "Please make it stop hurting." I tried my usual approach when she is crying, which is to offer to buy her a pony.

After a while, our doctor suggested that she have tubes put in. She had tubes a while back, and it seemed to stem the tide pretty well. But a few years post-tube, and she was back to her old ear infectin' ways.

It didn't take much convincing to move forward with the tubes. The doctor said he was also going to remove her adenoids. Adenoids may or may not exist. I do not know. There is a possibility that "adenoids" is some made-up word that doctors use just so they can laugh about you at their conventions.

We had to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. to check in. I am still not sure why check-in has to be before sunrise. I am all for everyone involved in even the most minor surgery get a full complement of sleep.

When we checked in, the nurse had us fill out all of the paperwork and put a hospital nightgown on Allie. She thought this was great, because none of her nightgowns are wide open in the rear. To a 3-year-old, this was a fanatically funny outfit.

The nurse brought Allie a little something to drink. This drink, she told us, would help Allie relax. Relax? She soon made Steven Wright look like Jim Carrey.

After only a few minutes, Allie began to stare off into space and chuckle. She was swaying back and forth, just giggling to herself. "Allie, are you OK?" I asked her.

She whipped her head around to see me. She then realized she had whipped too far, and tried again to focus on me. "Let me see your three hands," she said.

"Huh?"

"Hold up your three hands, Daddy."

I held up my hands. "I only have two hands, honey."

"No you don't...You have three..."

At that point, she became distracted and began trying to catch something floating in the air in front of her. To those of us without prescription relaxation supplements, there appeared to be nothing. To her, there appeared to be all kinds of cacheable, floating things.

And to anyone else who was in pre-op at that point, I would like to take this moment to apologize for the intense cackling coming from my wife and me.

The nurse came over to check on things, and Allie looked up and said, "Twins!" Another nurse walked by and she said, "Twins!"

No trouble with seeing double.

At that point, it was pretty clear that she was plenty relaxed. They took her into the operating room, where she would be for the next half hour or so. When they called us to come back to the recovery room, we were eagerly anticipating seeing our sweet little girl, perhaps still chock full of delirium.

Apparently, however, her pleasant disposition had been removed along with her adenoids. She was mad. Mad, mad, mad.

After about an hour, her madness subsided. By the end of the day, she was pretty much back to her old self, except without the constant ear infections. Hopefully, this time will finally stop the ear infections in their tracks. It's out of my hands now. All three of them.