Avery's Story: Pediatric Ear Tubes

My name is Andy. This is my daughter, Avery who’s two years old, and we came to see Dr. Robertson about putting tubes in her ears.

When we took Avery to her pediatrician, we always told her that she wasn't talking. They never really said anything about her ears being stopped up, or an ear infection, you know. They always said she had a runny nose, so maybe that. She's just not talking. And after three or four visits of continually saying she never talked, we decided to see a specialist. Originally, he recommended doing a couple rounds of antibiotics. We tried those a few times, and we started seeing the recurring ear infections, and just figured something wasn’t right, wasn't getting the job done, so then that's when we explored the tubes as an option.

At first, we had reservations about having the tubes put in Avery. We were just a little nervous about going into surgery as young she was, but it was a very, very quick process, and everything went really smoothly. She doesn't even know she had the tubes put in. It was just a very easy process. The overall surgery experience is really easy, really simple. The whole process probably took 10 minutes. We were in early in the morning and then we were right out, like I said, fifteen minutes later. Just very simple. Within an hour she was back to herself, and we were running around at home just like nothing ever happened.

Avery’s life and ours are much better now that we've had the tubes put in. When we got home from her surgery she was saying our dogs’ two names immediately, so she's always known a lot of words, and now she's able to express them. So it’s a lot easier on us. We can understand what she wants, and now she can communicate with us and the family, which has really made things a whole lot better.

I might tell the parents that are contemplating having the tubes in their children’s ears that it was a really good experience, and I would definitely do it. It’s much easier than we thought it would be. The turnaround time was great, and Avery’s a much happier baby now that she can talk and communicate with us, and it’s just been a really good experience. I would probably have done it a little bit sooner, looking back on it now, but overall is was a really, really good experience for Avery.