Adenoid & Tonsil Surgery

The surgery went well. His tonsils were "the size of ping pong balls" and his adenoids were huge too. He is not being allowed to nurse because the sucking might cause bleeding. (They don't let kids have straws until dismissal, either.)

He is still snoring, but now the cause is swelling from the surgery instead of a small airway with lots of tissue. He is snoring less now than Tuesday afternoon, which I take to be a good sign. During sleep his oxygen level still drops more than it should, so we have the O2 mask nearby. I move it to within a couple of inches of his face and the O2 level goes back up above 90% quickly (usually). He has a little fluid on his lungs, which is apparently common for someone whose obstruction was so large. The pressure in the lungs is much different now that the anatomy has changed so much.

Yesterday shortly after surgery he drank some water, so we thought he would be drinking & eating well quickly. After a dose of liquid tylenol with codine (which tastes awful) he refused to drink for most of the rest of the day and stayed on IV fluids. Today he drank some juice and some milk I pumped this morning, so the IV was unhooked. He napped very well this afternoon and drank 60 more cc of milk and 120 of juice (4 oz) and asked for more. This evening he drank about another 2 oz of juice before not wanting anymore. Tomorrow he gets to have ice cream and applesauce and similar soft foods.

I hadn't expected to need to pump, because I wasn't told that he would not be allowed to nurse. That was annoying because I told the doctor that we still nurse and specifically asked his nurse last week if I would be able to nurse DS2 in the recovery room. She said she would ask and let me know. I guess I should have called back the next day to get the answer. DH brought me my pump this morning (the PICU nurse did offer to get me a hospital one yesterday, which was nice). It had been 32 hours since DS2 had his "last meal" before going NPO before surgery. I was ready to pump! It had been about 6 months since the last time I pumped, I'm guessing. I bet I could go back in this blog and find out. :-)

I should have gone to sleep 2 hours ago, when DS2 finally went to sleep, but I wanted to check email. Now I might as well stay up a bit more because he is due for more pain medicine in about 15 minutes.