Surgery for Judah

Last Fall we noticed that Judah was snoring at night, which got progressively worse over a number of months. We saw an ENT in December, where he determined that Judah's tonsils were blocking 80% of his airway, and his adenoids were blocking 80% of his nasal passage. Similarly, he had fluid build-up behind his ears that was causing a 20% hearing loss. After a one month sleep study during which we tried antibiotics and steroids, there was no improvement with documented sleep apnea. In February, his ENT recommended surgery to shave 90% (they don't fully remove them anymore) of his tonsils and adenoids, and also place tubes in his ears. 

Although this is a very routine surgery, it is still unnerving to think about your child going under local anesthesia. The surgery start to finish is supposed to only take 45 minutes, and we are permitted to accompany him to the surgical suite to ease his transition going under. That turned out to be traumatic because you have to watch the anesthesiologist hold your child down while he is kicking and screaming while you helplessly try to soothe and console him, until his body goes completely limp. It's a truly heart wrenching. The doctors assured us that because he is so young he will have no memory of this. Too bad I won't. We were ushered out of surgery to a holding room, where we could watch Judah's progress on a screen that showed by color when the procedure started, when it was in progress and when it ended. I was silently crying the whole time, unable to get the image of his lifeless body out of my mind. Mistakes happen all the time right? 

Of course my worries were completely unfounded, as the surgery was complete in 25 minutes and we were getting a report from the ENT before I even knew, it, explaining that Judah did beautifully, confirming that the T&A were extremely enlarged. Relief. We were instructed to head up to the pediatric recovery area to wait for him to wake up. I was so anxious to see him.

Another unnerving site, to see him all hooked up to oxygen and monitors, lifeless under a blanket, drooling blood stained saliva onto the sheet. The nurses kept warning us that when he awoke he would be hysterical and inconsolable because children really don't like the foggy feeling of coming out of anesthesia. Thankfully, he stayed asleep long enough that the anesthesia wore off before we was conscious (which we attribute to keeping him up until 12am the night before in order to give him a last bit of food before he had to cease liquid and food intake). In any case, he woke up after over an hour, groggy but pretty much himself. He said his throat hurt a little, and he sounded squeaky. The nurses gave him juice (or three rather!) and some apple sauce. After a while we were permitted to take him home, but instructions to let him eat as much ice cream, popsicles, etc as he wanted. Well, here is a record of what he ate:

3 glasses of gatorade
grape jello
4 popsicles
5 glasses of apple juice
4 bowls of ice cream
shredded cheese
1/2 avocado

Whoa! At least he had a good appetite! He was in good spirits and seemed to recover quite nicely. The most interesting thing was his change in voice. It was higher and less nasal (which I hadn't really noticed before that it was nasal). I kept hearing his voice but not recognizing it. Weird. He slept soundly and silently from the first night. Such a relief that he will be getting good sleep again after battling to sleep well for 6 months. 

Getting ready for surgery in pre-op:

He HATED getting his ears marked.

 Post-op: