Baby has his tonsils and adenoids removed.

This was a difficult thing to deal with. Don’t like the idea of Baby going under the knife period, and recovery is tough too. Surgery was three days ago and the most painful part of the recovery is supposedly upon us in the coming days. Wounds are supposed to be scabbing up and starting to fall out now.

In terms of the surgery, it didn’t make sense to worry him ahead of time about it. We kept it vague, then one morning we’re driving to the hospital. Even then, it’s not like we’re going to say “we’re on the way to the hospital. They’re going to remove your tonsils and it’s for the better. The process involves cutting it all out while you’re sleeping, then staying the rest of the day and overnight in the hospital with a heart rate monitor and IV in your hand. Then it’s going to take a week to fully recover and it will be painful.”

It does pain me to think that from his perspective, he’s being taken to the hospital with a very casual explanation that doesn’t really make sense. Then a mask gets put on, and he wakes up feeling supremely groggy. Now he was wires stuck to him and he’s stuck in a bed until the next morning before going home. He’s super uncomfortable and being forced to take unpleasant medicine every three hours (including throughout the night, being forced awake just to experience some more terrible discomfort). Thinking about this sudden and random turn of events from his perspective stresses me out.

This all happened because of a sleep study. Baby wasn’t really growing for a pretty long period (8 months?) and we wondered what was up. Could it be related to the fact that he spent most of that period throwing up 3-4 times a night? He’d cough to the point of gagging, to the point of vomiting. Is this related to his audible sleep apnea? Is it that he’s not holding on to enough calories? The sleep study revealed severe obstructive sleep apnea, and turns out that creates undo stress on the heart every night. Not good for the heart to have undo stress, and it also involved burning a lot of calories to deal with breathing, calories that should otherwise go towards growth.

The most likely cause was his large tonsils. This, plus a suspected large set of adenoids as well, although that couldn’t be determined until the surgery (spoiler alert, his adenoids were large). So a stressful decision was made and I relied on denial to get me through the weeks leading up to the surgery. Reality showed up on Thursday morning and now we’re working through recovery. It’s going as well as it can for the most part – upsetting is just how much he really hates taking the medicine (ibuprofen and acetaminophen). We have to stay in front of the pain by giving it to him frequently, which he doesn’t really understand.

I also don’t really like thinking about the fact that it’s probably likely that Baby Sister will have to go through the same thing. Oh the joys…