Today
July 28th, 2014It’s done! G is now tonsil-less (and adenoids-less).
He woke up and with his usual routine, waddled over to our bed where he proceeded to go back to sleep to an epic “teenager-worthy” nap. He woke up at 9:30.
Getting to the hospital was pretty un-eventful. He packed all of his friends for the trip. We were told he could bring a comfort item — he decided that his comfort item would be the entire zoo 🙂 So he packed all his buddies up in his sack.
As soon as his butt hit the waiting room seat he declared he was “bored” and demanded S’ phone so he can play Angry Birds. We let him at it — I’d rather have him zone out into a game, than over-focus on the environment. Plus it gave us opportunity to talk to nurses without a 5 yr old telling his tale of boredom woe to all in hearing range.
I feel super fortunate to have such a great hospital with staff trained with pediatric procedures. This is the second time we’ve been here (first being S2’s ear tubes). Each time the staff has made me feel really good to leave my kid in their hands. While we had the snaffu of last week where they needed to defer G’s surgery, it still ended up working out alright in the end.
In the pre-op room he got to “test” the face mask, and smell it. Even Moonka got to give it a try.
G walked off into the OR without much complaint. Anesthesiologist in the end said he was one of his best patients all year.
I had talked to him about going to sleep and needing to count to 10. I told him I could barely get past 1 before I’d fall asleep with anesthesia. I challenged him to see how high he could go. He claimed he went all the way to 10. I’m not going to validate this one with the OR staff 🙂
The time in the recovery room was rough. He opened his eyes wide, and I could tell in that instant he had no idea who I was sitting in front of him. You could tell by the sheer expression of his face and how his eyes opened that he was freaked out. Luckily he closed them and went back out for another few minutes. I hated that feeling. He woke up again a bit later, recognizing he couldn’t breathe. Because of the 3rd procedure (enlarging his nasal passages), they packed his nostrils with cotton balls. We weren’t expecting this, and accordingly failed to warn him, so he wasn’t either. He hated it. He cried, because he couldn’t breathe. And crying made his throat more uncomfortable. So he cried more. And got angry. It made me want to cry. I hated hat feeling too. Thankfully the cotton balls only needed to be in half an hour, and G dozed back off listening to his favorite new band, Big Bang Boom. The hospital had wifi, and S could stream it on his phone. After the cotton balls came out, he was much better. He stared off at my Kindle. But he drank water, and ate a pop-cycle within the first hour after surgery.
Taking his pain meds will be challenging. Apparently kids Tylenol stings. Within 1ml of dosage he was waving the nurse off. S had the good thinking, to have him eat another pop-cycle to numb his throat. That approach worked, and they got the rest of the medication down. Now the trick is doing this again tomorrow… and the day after that.
As a whole G did really great, and we’re really proud of him. He was brave (or chose to be selectively ignorant of anything but the ice cream bit). He impresses me so much in these types of occasions.
S is spending the night in the hospital with G. I hope they both have a good night. I won’t lie, it stings a bit that G chose S. I mean, I knew he would — he’s a Daddy’s boy (right now). But it still hurt. On the flipside, I came home to find S2 declaring that he’s sleeping with me tonight because “Daddy is never coming back” So while I’m rejected by one son, I’m claimed by another. I’ll take it 🙂
I took some iPhone photos of G’s journey today. Enjoy! Now… let’s hope the rest of this week passes without much incident and his recovery goes smoothly and as pain-free as possible.
Oh! One last thing. G REALLY wanted to see his tonsils in the end. After having a tooth out (and consequent Tooth-fairy visit), he really wanted to know if he was going to get any money for his tonsils. He’s placated at least to know that he’ll be compensated for his tonsil jar contribution with a few days of non-stop ice cream consumption. While the surgery nurse couldn’t get the jar out to wait for him to wake up, she took some pictures. Be warned, that photo is in this set too… but I’ll be kind to you — it will be at the very, very end, and I will give you plenty of warning to turn away. But this is G’s story, and what he wants goes.
Ok… here goes
look away
really…. look away
this is another warning that a tonsil picture is coming
and it’s not black and white
which means you might find it gory
cuz it’s red, and you know what red means
have you looked away yet?
are you having one of those “curiosity killed the cat” moments?
alright, don’t say you weren’t warned!
For reference, we were told they were the size of grapes. And no, A — don’t know if it’s Champagne or other variety ;p