Surgery Day V

Today was Ethan's surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids to hopefully alleviate his airway obstruction issues.

Ethan's snoring had gotten so bad we called it into Children's where they decided to admit him for a sleep study. The results showed that his oxygen levels were lower than usual and he had experienced a higher number of apnea episodes than is acceptable. The consensus from the neurologist (the sleep doctor) and his ENT was that if we do a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy, this should open up the airway enough so as to resolve these issues.

The surgery went well with no surprises or issues during the intubation or the procedure. They removed his tonsils (they turned out to be much larger than originally suspected) and about 2/3 of his adenoids. Before removing any of his adenoids, the doctor verified he did not have a submucosal cleft palate (http://www.cleftline.org/publications/submucous). The presence of this would have affected her decision of how much, if any, of his adenoids to remove as this could possibly impact his speech development. However, she found no evidence of this and therefore proceeded with the procedure.

The recovery was another issue, however. In his previous surgeries, with the pain medications, he was groggy but otherwise himself as he recovered from the procedures. This time, however, due to the swelling in his throat because of all the work done in the area, even with all the pain medications, the simple act of swallowing was bothersome and painful for the little guy. This meant that he could not even self-soothe on his bottle as he couldn't drink anything. At meal time, he actually tried to eat a chicken nugget but likewise, couldn't swallow it. He was obviously frustrated and in discomfort every time he tried to swallow.

He was upgraded from Tylenol to Oxycontin, to finally morphine. Surprisingly, even with the morphine, even though he was much better, he did not fall asleep. Instead he just sat and chilled out. It should be noted that during this time, while the pain was under control he still did not eat or drink anything...

The doctors said that this was, unfortunately, to be expected and is common. The swelling should subside in the next 24 hours and that he should be able to eat and drink better by tomorrow.

One of his conditions of his discharge is that he be able to eat and/or drink. Hopefully he will be able to satisfy that condition by tomorrow or Sunday at the latest...

- b