Rough Morning

So far this has been a rough morning, and it's only 9am! :( Monkey woke up really sore. He is having a hard time swallowing at all, and now he says his tongue feels like it's burning. I assume they use clamps during the surgery to keep the tongue out of the way, as there's a cut and a sore on one spot that I can see. Monkey is tongue tied though, so he can't stick his tongue out very far so I can't see much.

He has had two popsicles so far, and his meds. He says nothing else goes down. We've tried jello, baby food bananas, and ice cream. These things were all fine yesterday, so today is starting out worse.

I told him we just need to be sure he eats popsicles all day and is peeing. I'm worried about dehydration, since he won't eat or drink anything except the popsicles.

This is rough! The ENT had told me that 8 or 9 is the age where a tonsillectomy starts getting harder than it is for little kids. Monkey is almost 10, so I guess it's normal for a rough recovery.

Cross your fingers that I can keep him hydrated and ease his pain some!

A Tonsilless Monkey

Yesterday was the big day. My Monkey boy was so scared. It's definately harder with an older kid, who undertands what's going to happen to him. I asked them to give him Versed before taking him and putting the IV in, as his anxiety level was already sky high. So they juiced him, and then wheeled him off. They said they would gas him to sleep before they did the IV, and the Versed was kicked in so he didn't care about the gas mask.

Surgery took 90 minutes, and the ENT came out to tell us about it. We had been on the fence about doing this surgery, as the ENT wasn't sure it was the answer to Monkey's sleep apnea. He said he thought it had about a 50% chance of helping, but the pediatrician agreed that we should try it. It's a good thing we did - his tonsils were very infected and full of yellow pus! He also said they were badly scarred from previous infections. Wow - Monkey has NEVER been diagnosed with tonsilitis! He has never complained about a sore throat, except the one time he had strep throat. My poor bub had such yucky tonsils and we didn't even know! The ENT also said that he had hardly any adnoid tissue, but he went ahead and removed it to be safe.

Hopefully this will help the sleep apnea. If not, we have to do a bronchoscopy to look at his airways. He has very small airways and a history of severe laryngotraceomalacia. CROSS YOUR FINGERS that the tonsillectomy stops the apnea!

He is sitting playing his DS right now. He's had a million popsicles, jello cups, and I made frozen pudding pops. He drank a flat 7-up, but it's hard to get him to drink. I hate to have to scare him into it, but I told him that if he doesn't drink enough and pee enough, we would have to go back for IV hydration. It sounds mean, but otherwise he refuses to drink. Poor Monkey. :(

The pictures below are in order from when we got to the hospital and checked in, to the recovery room, to home. I love the one with the popsicle, he was still so drugged but insisted he was ready for a popsicle. And of course the last one, nothing makes him feel better than snuggling with his Hannah dog. :)

My Monkey boy is having surgery

He's going in on Tuesday to have his tonsils and adnoids taken out. He has obstructive sleep apnea, and they are hoping that this surgery will help that. He is SO high anxiety, this is not going to be fun. The ENT says the anesthesiologist will be able to give him some oral Versed before putting in the IV.

I was wondering if any of you would consider mailing him a card? He mentioned that Peanut gets cards and such in the mail when she goes in the hospital sometimes, and I know he would LOVE to get some mail of his own! If you are interested, please leave me a comment with your email address. I hope this doesn't sound rude, but I will only be giving our address to people who I have blogged/commented with for a while, not new posters. Surely you can understand!!

Wish us luck Tuesday. We are stocked up with pudding, jello, popsicles, and gatorade.

Taking Monkey to the pediatrician at 11:40.

Wish us luck. I hope she can push her way through the ENT's thinking enough to get us some relief NOW!

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Monkey that is, not Peanut.

His sleep study results are in. He was only in REM sleep for 9% of his sleep time, normal is 25-40% according to the pediatrician. He had multiple episodes of "arousal" - their word for sitting up and talking in his sleep without waking up. He had numerous apneic episodes in which his O2 levels dropped.

So now we go to the ENT, and get his tonsils and adnoids taken out. Hopefully that will solve the problems. Now to get this kid through surgery. He has the highest anxiety levels of any 9 year old I've ever met. He was literally hyperventilating today when I was talking to him about it, over the thought of getting an IV.

Cross your fingers that we can get this taken care of quickly!