The Bear Cub's T&A

My bear cub had her tonsils and adenoids removed on Wednesday.  I knew it was coming as the need for it was mentioned a number of times by her pediatrician and also her pulmonologist, but it would be mentioned and then they would tell me we could wait a little bit longer.  The next appointment after she turned four, all of a sudden it seemed more urgent, and both doctors were encouraging me to schedule it right away.  We saw the pediatric ENT that handles most of the kids that I know with special needs in the area.  He also suggested that likely she needed ear tubes and we scheduled it then.  We had a little scare with the pre-surgery blood work being off, but it turned out to be a minor thing and the surgery went as planned.

The surgery went well and this is my bear cub right after the surgery.  We tried to distract her from the pain by showing her youtube videos of the Fresh Beat Band as she loves them and has a crush on Twist, but she wasn't really interested.

Because she weighs so little the doctor didn't feel it was worth the risk of any pain relievers stronger than Tylenol.  Despite that, she is doing amazingly well.  She is a super trooper and by the next morning she was already willing to give us smiles and try to eat and drink.

Friday morning, she was even better and was wanting to play and run and started really fighting us giving her any medications.  I am supposed to keep her indoors and from playing too hard for two to three weeks and they told me not to send her back to school or take her to church for at least a week.  I'm not sure how I'm supposed to keep her from being too active when this is what she was doing Friday morning.

Even when I tried to distract her by coloring with her on the floor, she decided that it would be more fun to run in circles around me than sit down and join me.

This doesn't surprise me too much considering that after her heart surgery (at 8 months) she was rolling around the living room floor two days afterward even though they said to expect to be in the hospital for 7 to 14 days.  The nerdlet actually seemed more traumatized by Q and I being gone for 2 days than the bear cub did by the surgery.

Even with the swelling from her surgery, she is already breathing better and snoring less.  She is actually eating better than she ever has.  I'm beginning to think that part of the reason that she always ate so little was because it was too difficult and painful to eat or drink much with the huge tonsils and adenoids.  I also sort of wonder with how little she is reacting to the pain if maybe she has been in almost constant pain before this.

She is so amazing to me and I've always called her my superhero baby and now I just have another reason.