Sunday, September 23, 2007

Dylan's Tonsillectomy


We found out Dylan wasn't breathing very well while he was sleeping right before Preston was born. He fell asleep in my arms with his head tilted back and every few minutes would be gasping for breath. We took him to the ENT, who told us they were a 3 out of 4 (or almost touching) and recommended we either have his tonsils and adenoids taken out or take him in for a sleep study. We thought it would be easier to just remove them and be done with it. He was just starting with a cold at the time so we waited a month and then had them taken out. His surgery was on May 15, 2007. Primary Children's is a great hospital and geared towards children's needs so it was awesome in most respects. He loved the toys and wanted to ride around and pull the wagons. The only downfall is that a 3-year-old is actually one of the older kids at a children's hospital and the surgeries are done in order of age. He wasn't allowed to eat after midnight the night before (which was really 7 p.m. since he went to bed after that) and he wasn't allowed any liquid after 10 a.m. The surgery wasn't until 1:45 p.m. That was such a long time for him to go without food. It is so difficult to explain to a child that young why they aren't allowed to eat when they are hungry. Luckily the surgery went well. It was a difficult week and Dylan was pretty clingy and then things were back to normal. My favorite memories of the surgery are from the second day when the medicine had worn off a little bit. He would feel fine and then the pain would hit him. The first time the medicine had really worn off, he looked over at me with a very nervous look on his face and said, "Um, mom, I think there's a 'ploblem' in my mouth." It was so sweet and sad at the same time. Another day he wanted me to hold him and pat him on the back so he said, "Mom, can you burp me?" It was a tough time to have surgery with a 2-month-old baby, but we were glad to get it over with and have Dylan sleeping better again.

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