Pop Goes the Ear

When Tootle had cleft palate surgery late last year, the ENT surgeon replaced the ear tube that had popped out of her right ear but decided during surgery not to replace the left one. When the surgeon told me about her decision post surgery, I knew it wasn't a good thing, and now I'm even more convinced of it. Tootle has been complaining for the past month or so that her left ear is popping, and a recent hearing test at school showed some reduced hearing in that ear. A trip to the pediatrician revealed that there is a lot of fluid and wax, and that the tube is out. There appears to be nothing I can do to help except to continue giving her Claritin and Nasonex for her spring allergies and telling her how sorry I am that her ear is popping when she tells me about it multiple times a day. I hate feeling so helpless. We have an ENT appointment on Monday (an improvement over the original date of mid May), and I expect that another PE tube surgery will follow, hopefully in short order. The original right tube lasted about 12 months and the left one 17 months or so. Tootle will need tubes until she is a teenager (fluid builds up in her shorter than average Eustachian tubes, resulting in hearing loss) so I see years of surgeries staggered just months apart unless I'm able to convince the ENT to stop the nonsense and just replace both at the same time. I also need to talk to her about the longer lasting t-shaped tubes. Wish me luck.