McKay has been snoring for quite a while (like enough so that no one wants to share a room with him) and we decided to get it checked out, knowing that if he needed to get his tonsils removed now would be a good time. We went into the ENT on Oct. 11th and they did a scope up through his nose, which he was not a fan of, but they were able to get a good look at his tonsils and adenoids. They were both definitely bigger than usual so they decided to get him scheduled for surgery. I also had them look at his nose because he gets so many bloody noses. They told me they don't usually cauterize kids noses that young, but after she took a look she said he had a huge blood vessel on each side and that they would go ahead and get it taken care of during surgery. They were able to schedule him for surgery just 8 days later on Oct. 19th. I wasn't expecting it to be so soon, but it was nice to just get it done with. I definitely had a little anxiety since neither of our kids had ever even been to urgent care or the hospital.
Wednesday afternoon they called to let me know that he was to show up to the surgery center at 11:00am. He wasn't supposed to eat anything after midnight and in the morning he could only drink water and gatorade and eat jello until 9:00am. He did surprising well with that. He didn't whine or complain at all about being hungry. We drove downtown to the surgery center and got all checked in. They got us back to the pre-op room and a bunch of people came in and out to tell us about everything that was going to happen, everyone was great with McKay and he was very calm about it all. They had him change into a gown and even had him decorate the mask that he was going to use to put him to sleep. They had coloring stuff for him, we played card games and just hung out until they were ready for him. He did not seem nervous at all when they rolled him off, he even told them a joke about butt cracks as they took him back.
The surgery was super quick, only about 30 minutes. The doctor came to let me know that everything went well and then they came to get me once McKay was starting to wake up. When I got back to the post-op room with him he was pretty out of it and was not wanting to wake up. The nurse finally got him to wake up enough to take a drink of apple juice. It took him another 20 minutes or so to finally wake up. As he was waking up the nurse gave me all the instructions about his post-op care and they brought me all of his prescriptions. Once he had drank enough, they took out his IV and we were able to get him dressed and they wheeled him out to the parking garage. He was still fairly out of it and slept most of the way home. I had a bowl in the car just in case he needed to throw up. I wasn't sure how he would handle the anesthesia and was prepared for him to throw up. Once we got home he finally woke up and was wide awake the rest of the day. I thought he would be totally drowsy and kinda out of it, but he was totally awake and was completely bored with just sitting around all evening. Grandma came to visit and drop off popsicles and smoothies. His throat got a little more sore once the big medications started to wear off, but he was doing really really well. I was instructed to alternate giving him tylenol and IB profen every 3 hours. He was not a fan of me waking him up in the night, but we got it done.
We gave him his steroid meds Friday and Saturday morning and kept up with the tylenol and IB profen. He was doing so amazingly well, it was like nothing had even happened. Friday he was so bored with me, luckily Nana stopped by for a visit. Saturday we went out to Brooklyn's soccer game and it was hard to keep him from running around. He was instructed to not run around and get breathing hard for 14 days after surgery, which I figured would be the hardest part of recovery. Sunday morning he woke up a little more sore, but still came to church with us. Sunday evening he was wanting to get back to school, so I had emailed his teacher that he would be into school in the afternoon, well Monday morning he woke up in tears. This was the first time he had cried or even complained about anything. His throat was so sore, he didn't want to eat or talk, so I did my best to just get him to drink. The next few days continued like this. The only thing I could really get him to eat was plain bread and he would wake up a time or two in the night really sore, it felt like I had a newborn again. Thursday morning he was starting to feel a little better and I was able to get him to eat a little more. I dropped him off at school for the afternoon. He was a little nervous, but I assumed having the distraction of school would actually be good for him. He came home and said it went pretty well and so on Friday we sent him to school for a full day. That evening he even went to a Halloween party with his friends. He was still sore for a few more days, but was finally sleeping better and eating more. I think we were both happy to have him back at school, I don't think I can play another game of Go Fish for quite some time. At about the 2 week mark he was feeling pretty much back to normal and he was so excited to run around again and be active. He was such a great patient and really his complaining was very minimal. I am so glad that it is all behind us now and that he is totally back to normal. He is so happy to be eating normally again and able to run around and be his active self. I am so glad that everything went smoothly and grateful to know that he handles general anesthesia well. Fingers crossed we won't have any more surgeries/hospital outings anywhere in the near future.
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