plugged what?!

tear ducts, plugged tear ducts. Grayson had a minor procedure to unplug his tear ducts. Almost all babies have plugged tear ducts when they are born and almost all of those little plugged ducts normally pop all on their own. Let a baby have a really good cry or massage the corners of their eyes and they'll pop no problem.

Well....sometimes they don't pop no matter how much you massage or let them cry. The solution is rather simple, stick a very sharp, thin needle in the duct and unplug them. We've know from about 4 months of age that Grayson would be having surgery if his tear ducts failed to pop on their own by the time he turned 1. At his 12 month well baby appointment, the first thing his pediatrician said was, "what are we going to do about his eyes?" Troy and I were pretty use to Grayson's funky eyes. Everyone commented that either he had just been crying (since his eyes were constantly tearing because they had no where to drain) or he was sick (since his tears couldn't drain, neither could the bacteria so he had funky goopy eye yuck - and yes, that's the medical term).

Since we only have a clinic on the base, there is no full hospital, everything beyond a cold gets referred out to the German economy. The insurance office actually takes care of the paperwork and schedules the appointments for you. It was super easy. The complicated part was 1) finding the hospital 2) finding the parking garage for the hospital (fyi - it's on the other side of the street, underground, behind the gas station) 3) finding the doctor's office

After finding the doctor's office we were asked if we have private insurance and since we have tricare it's considered private. We were whisked away from the massive waiting room with all the really unhappy looking people to another waiting room, that was much smaller and nicer and even had snacks and water out for the patients. When it was Grayson's turn with the doctor, he looked at Grayson for about 2 seconds and declared he had plugged tear ducts. To which I said, "Yes, yes he does." He suggested Grayson have surgery. I agreed. I spent another 30 minutes completing paperwork and Grayson was all set for April 27th at 8am.

April 27th rolled around. I don't think Troy and I slept much the night before. The procedure was very simple but they had to put Grayson out with full anesthesia. We got up bright and early to get Mayer to a friend's house for the morning and to get Grayson to the hospital by 745. After we got there and checked in, the kept Grayson with us until the last possible second. Once they took him back, we couldn't go with him. So instead, the anesthesiologist came out to us to give Grayson his happy medicine. And a nurse came out to give him some eye drops. The anesthesiologist said he would come back in 20 minutes to get Grayson and take him back. Grayson was hysterical when the drugs kicked in. He had a toy in his mouth like a dog bone and kept looking at Troy upside-down and poking him. He tried to stand and couldn't even stand up straight. They came out and got him and said they would bring him out in 45 minutes and then we could go down to the recovery room with him. The doctor came out about 45 minutes later to say everything went well and he ran some other tests. He was concerned that Grayson might also have glaucoma. Well, he said everything was normal, Grayson just has beautiful eyes. I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't figure out the color of my kid's eyes and the doctor is the head of the Ophthalmology Department. The clinic is named after the man for crying out loud. Anyway, back to seriousness, a few minutes after the doctor spoke with us, the anesthesiologist came out with Grayson in a little baby gurney. Grayson was freaking out....and that is putting it mildly. He couldn't hold his head up but he wouldn't lay down. He kept trying to lean over. So they let me hold him and he was flopping all over the place. I must have looked panicked, for both of the professionals told me it was all normal and he would be fine in a little bit. So we went into the recovery room and I stayed with his since only one of us could stay with him. Grayson proceeded to cry...I mean scream like I was killing him for an hour straight. The nurse gave him some pain meds to see if it would help, which it did a little bit.He finally fell asleep from such insane crying.  I am pretty sure we were discharged the first second she was allowed to let us leave. He had his procedure at 8:30am and he was discharged at 10:40am. We left with a prescription for some antibiotic eyedrops and that was it.

Looking at him, you would never know he had anything done, except for the fact that his eyes are no longer watery and goopy. The day of his surgery, after he woke up from his nap in the recovery room, he was totally fine. After all was said and done, it was a very good experience with an excellent outcome. Grayson is tough little boy who bounces back very quickly.