On October 9th Ada had surgery to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. Starting in August we noticed that she was snoring nearly every night and sounded congested quite often. We finally had her seen in September when these "symptoms" just didn't go away and she appeared to be having periods of apnea while sleeping. Sure enough her tonsils were large...which isn't abnormal for children this age but to be sure we were referred to an ENT for an evaluation. The ENT recommended surgery and low and behold they were able to fit us in to their schedule rather quickly. Ada was a trooper and the brand new facilities at the UW/American Family Children's hospital were super. Nevertheless the experience was not a pleasant one.
Once out of surgery the Doctor informed us that there was no doubt in her mind that the tonsils and adenoids needed to be removed. Apparently they were so large the had a hard time intubating (spelling?) her. Normally she removes the adenoids first but she couldn't even SEE the adenoids because of the size of the tonsils. Coming out of sedation was rough...rougher than a normal procedure - because they had a hard time intubating her and were concerned with her breathing they needed to wake her while she was still under rather deep (normally they would let patients just wake up on their own), so Ada was quite upset. Screaming, thrashing, crying, holding her breath and of course in a lot of pain. This lasted for a good 20-30 minutes...it was heartbreaking. Eventually she calmed down (in Daddy's arms) while sucking on a purple Popsicle.
From this point on Ada was such a trooper. She ate about a gazillion Popsicles, watched cartoons and was even singing. We were discharged around 5pm. The next couple of days were rough. We were instructed to give her Tylenol every 4 hours around the clock for the pain. She wasn't sleeping or eating (of course) and would tell anyone who would listen, "I don't feel better, I got a ouch in my froat, I need a medicine, make me feel better". By Sunday we did venture out to the Pumpkin Patch and had a good time while there but I later regretted that decision as I think it set her recovery back quite a bit. The following week was rocky but progressing.
A week after the surgery she started to go backwards in her behavior and pain tolerance and one afternoon I noticed some blood in her crib. After consulting with the nurses we were instructed to bring her back in to the hospital and ended up spending the night for observation. They are very conservative with their care of this age group and want to make sure there isn't a bleed that would require immediate intervention. Ada was awesome. She slept in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and I slept in a bed in the same room. She let the nurses check her every 4 hours throughout the night to give her more meds and check for bleeding. We were seen in the morning by the doctors and given the green light for soft food (she wasn't allowed to eat the whole time we were there) and go home. This was around 7am. We didn't get our final discharge papers until 12:30pm. It was a LONG morning. Ada did great, eating chocolate pudding, drinking full strength juice, watching movies and dragging around her IV with her to the bathroom and to the Child Life playroom but we were both glad to get home!
Fast forward to today. She is doing so much better and the snoring is non-existent! Unfortunately as soon as she seemed to be recovered completely from the surgery she caught a cold and we've all been passing it back and forth ever since. She is my darling little trooper though! I'm so proud!
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