Ashford Clinic Blog
Part 4: Recovery from Surgery
We’re Justin and Cindy Reynolds, and we live in Athens, GA with our two girls. We’re sharing our story of how Ashford Clinic helped our family. In December 2017, Dr. Alex Ashford operated on both our 5-year-old and our 1-year-old… on the SAME day! This is part 4 of a 4 part series. All opinions and experiences are our own.
Going into surgery day, I thought we were crazy. What sane parents have surgery on both of their young children on the same day?! But once again, the Ashford Clinic staff was there for us. They strategically scheduled our girls for early in the morning, and they were home and napping as most people were settling into their workday.
When Sadie woke up from her nap, we could already tell she was feeling better after having tubes put in her ears. Her ears were draining off fluid, but she had a smile on her face. She was a little sleepy that morning, and took a great afternoon nap, but for the most part, it was like she was back to normal. It was great to see her feeling like herself again!
Heidi called me the day after the surgeries to check in and see how everyone was doing. She gave me a number to call if anything went wrong over the weekend, and gave me a few things to watch out for, like post-op bleeding with Nora. She answered all of my questions and gave me some great “mom” advice to help the girls recover quickly.
Nora’s recovery from having her tonsils and adenoids removed was a longer process than Sadie’s ear tubes, but it went really well. The staff had prepared us to set a schedule for pain medicine and keep it to the minute for the first few days. We set alarms on our phones and wrote down what she should take and when to keep us on track. For the most part, she did awesome!
For Nora, we ran into some hurdles with taking medicine (something she does NOT like to do) and being more tired than normal for the first week or so. Those were our biggest issues, and we feel very fortunate to have had such a great experience with recovery overall, and credit that to the amazing care and support for their recovery we received from Ashford Clinic.
We kept Nora from running and jumping for a full 14 days – which wasn’t the easiest task over Christmas. By the end of Day 14, she felt great. She sounded great. She was sleeping better, and eating normally.
I took Sadie in for her follow up appointment, and everything had healed perfectly. The tubes were in place, the eardrum closed around it, and her ears were finally functioning properly.
Nora’s follow up went great too. At a month out from surgery, the swelling was almost completely gone, and everything looked to be healing as it should be. During that first month we saw improvement in Nora’s sleep. She went from waking several times during the night to sleeping completely through the night several times per week. When she did awaken at night, the periods were short and she went back to sleep easily.
I can’t thank Dr. Ashford and his staff enough. They were so good to our kids, and took excellent care of them. It’s hard to completely convey everything I like about their practice, but I thought it would be fun to give you my the top 5 things I LOVE about this practice:
5. Access: They take time to answer ALL of your questions. They respond to you promptly, and get you in quickly for appointments (usually within one week).
4. Flexibility: They work around your schedule and tailor treatments and decisions based on what’s best for you, the patient.
3. Communication: They give you appointment reminders, follow up with you, and make sure you have everything you need.
2. Expertise: Dr. Ashford is a highly skilled physician and has staffed his practice with knowledgeable and adept nurses, assistants, and front office staff.
1. Compassion: Dr. Ashford and his team truly care about their patients, and it shows in everything they do.
