Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Tonsillectomy Recovery

Well, it didn't go as smoothly as we hoped, but my four-year-old is doing okay now. He had a meltdown this morning when they asked him to put on his scrubs. We ended up giving him a sedative. The surgery was fine as far as I know. He only lost a very small amount of blood. The doctor said his tonsils and adenoids were about the size of 2 1/2 to 3 ping pong balls! He said, "No question, they needed to be taken out."

The initial recovery was absolutely horrible. The nurses couldn't get him to calm down, so they called me back to the room. He was dry heaving and burping up air, screaming and then throwing up for at least an hour. It was really hard to take. There was nothing we could do to calm him down. The nurses said sometimes kids who have a sedative have a really hard time waking up. That is definitely true in our case. Eventually, my son calmed down for about a half hour and ate two Popsicles and we got to go home. The whole process took about four and half hours.

We gave him some Tylenol with codeine this afternoon and he did great. He even ate macaroni and cheese for dinner. He says his throat hurts, but he continues to take fluids, so I am grateful.

Thank you for all your well wishes!

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really happy to hear it's over. I hate that you had to see him in so much pain though! I hope things go real well moving forward!

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear it didn't go as easy as you had hoped for. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day:)

Anonymous said...

Wow Jen...reading that really moved me. I can't even begin to imagine how you must have felt. Glad to read that things did finally improve. Quite an adventure.

Jennifer said...

Oh, gosh, that sounds stressful. It's overwhelmingly hard to see one's kid in pain, especially when you know they don't understand what is happening.

I'm glad things are going better now.

Knight in Dragonland said...

Two of my kids have had to undergo procedures requiring anesthesia (tympanostomy tubes & adenoidectomy; abscess I&D), but the wake-up process was definitely the worst part. Fortunately they're usually much better by the next day, but that can be a long night after the procedure. They often don't remember any of the post-op mayhem, either.

Emily/Randomability said...

I know I'm late, but how has the tonsillectomy changed him? I had mine out at 19 {Ack!} and I have a feeling that my son will eventually need them out too. He's had tubes twice now and with the second set they removed his adenoids, but not his tonsils.

 
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