Family Ties

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Hannah's POV

"One sec, buddy. He's almost done." I said as softly as I could, holding Hank's head and stroking his hair as the doctor inspected his ear with his little tool.

"It hurts." He sniffled, doing his best to stay still but obviously in a lot of pain.

"I know, you're doing so good, only a few more seconds." I told him just as the doctor finished, nodding at me that it was okay for Hank to sit up. "All done."

Hank sat up, burying his face into my neck he sat on my lap while the doctor began to explain to me what was going on. For the past couple of days, Harry and I had been taking turns getting up with Hank during the night while he cried in pain from his ear. He'd always had problems with his ears, getting constant infections, but it seemed to be so much worse lately and his drops hadn't been doing anything to help.

"I think it's time to explore the options here." The doctor sighed. "A lot of kids have chronic ear infections, but Hank seems to have developed a resistance to any of the treatments we usually offer. The ear canal is extremely inflamed and untreated infections can cause damage to the ear drum over time."

"Okay...so what are the options?" I asked.

"Well the most common, that I think is the best treatment for Hank, is to insert some tubes to help drain some of the excess fluid. He has a drainage problem, so any time he gets any water in his ears fluid pools and then gets infected. We don't want him to have to avoid swimming and any other water activities, so tubes are the best way to help the problem."

"What does that entail?" I asked, looking down at him and running my fingers through his hair.

"It's surgical, so he would need to spend a night in the hospital and be given an anesthetic, but it is a very simple procedure and we have some of the best surgeons in the country available to us." He said, looking at Hank sympathetically as he clung to me.

"He needs surgery?" I asked, shocked.

"I really see it as the only option to alleviate the problem. Without inserting tubes he'll continue to be in pain, and he risks hearing damage or spread of infection if it's not treated. The ear canal is very close to the brain, and erosion can make it easy for infection to affect his brain if we're not careful."

I swallowed hard, not expecting that his ear problems would be so complicated, and hating the idea that he would need surgery. At the same time, he was in so much pain that I didn't see how else we were gonna help him. He was exhausted, hardly been sleeping at all, and Harry and I were almost at the end of our rope as to how to help.

"How long is the procedure?" I asked, trying to come to terms with the fact that it seemed to be the only way to stop him from being in pain.

"It's only about an hour, and I can get him in next week." He said confidently as he looked down at Hank. "I know it sounds serious, but it is actually very common and he'll be good as new."

"So if you put the tubes in will it fix his ear problems all together? Or it just minimizes further damage?" I asked, wanting to make sure it wasn't just a temporary fix.

"No, it will eliminate the drainage problem, which is causing the infections, so he should hopefully be completely normal with the tubes. He won't need any more drops or anything. He may still get the odd infection like most kids, but nothing like he gets now." He explained.

I took a deep breath, not loving the idea of trusting someone to operate on his ears, but it didn't sound like there were many other options.

"If you can get him in next week what can we do until then for his pain?"