Its been almost a month since my last post, and I'm once again writing about medical stuff! Trust me, much more goes on in our lives than that! Just way too fast for me to stop and write about it these days!
Alex went in today for his 3rd and (hopefully) final set of tubes. Now that he's done this twice before and is now old enough to remember the 2nd time for sure, this may be the roughest recovery. We didn't tell him much before this morning about the whole process (partially because time snuck up on us) and because we didn't want him to fret too much about it and work himself up. Last night we told him he would be going to see the doctor to fix his ears and didn't say much more, this morning I repeated the same thing, but dropped the word surgery in there as well, he hadn't put it together completely until we pulled up to the surgery center. The surgery center is next to the doctors office, as we turned off to the surgery center Alex said, "No, I don't want to get any tubes. I can hear fine." With a few power struggles, we made it successfully into the building.
Once in the building Alex found interest in Sponge Bob Square Pants (something he's not allowed to watch at home) and seemed to have forgotten about the upcoming tubes. When we took him back to the admission area, he had a ball telling the nurse his whole life story. He went into full detail telling her about Netflix and how he can watch Wonder Pets on there, he explained in his terms how Netflix was now downloaded onto the Wii itself instead of needing a disc. My favorite moment from the pre-surgery period, the nurse had just finished her questions she had to ask about his health history and said, "perfect." Alex's response, "Yes, I am about perfect," in a very matter of fact tone. Alex was able to pick out a scent that he wanted to have for his anesthesia mask to help deter from the smell of it, he took a long time to make a decision and was finally debating between strawberry and grape, he went with his old faithful, grape.
A surgery nurse came and met Alex and introduced himself, he did a good job of talking with him and listening to what he had to say. He gave him the option of walking by his side or having him carry Alex. At about that time, Alex realized what was going on and started to tear up and when given the option he said, "I would rather walk home with my mom." This made me tear up and I'm sure didn't make the parting any easier on him. I tried my hardest to stay strong and tear free, until the point that they had taken him to where he couldn't see me anymore, then I let loose. Talk about a crazy, pregnant, emotional momma! I think the pre-surgery nurse thought I was crazy.
During the surgery I was fortunate to have a friend there waiting for their child's surgery for part of the time, we comforted each other! ;) The surgery took about half an hour and then I met with the doctor, he said things turned out quite well and that the tubes were in and he had cauterized the adenoids to almost nothing.
Recovery was the part I was dreading most, the last 2 times we had this done Alex was inconsolable and extremely distraught, worse yet, this time I was doing it on my own. They called me back and once again he was screaming and crying. I took him into my arms and soothed him as much as I could, he soon calmed to the point that he would drink some applejuice and take long rest periods between crying, eventually he stretched the rest periods out to last until the nurse came back into the room ;) he knew how to get a little more attention! All in all this recovery was the best one so far! It took us an hour and a half to be discharged, but it seemed to run much smoother this time.
UNTIL the drive home...About 2 miles away from the surgery center Alex coughed a little, and said something about his neck hurting (which I had narrowed down to meaning his throat hurt), I handed him the juice that was leftover and within seconds of taking a drink he threw up everything in his stomach. The poor boy sat and worried about the mess and apologized over and over. We got him home and did some impromptu laundry and parked him on the couch for the next hour or so. We eased him back into eating, Grandma picked up a McFlurry for him to have for lunch, he swiped one of my chicken nuggets and then continued to rest on the couch. He complied with taking a nap (something he doesn't really do anymore) and then woke up a happy talkative little boy, most likely thankful to be feeling better. We gave him a couple special treats for him being such a big boy and he's so thrilled with them. (I will attach a picture later on, I don't have the camera handy right now).
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers as we've gone through this bumpy ride. We're praying today was the last of our troubles with Alex's ears and he'll be able to move ahead without any further damage to his hearing.
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