Tonsils - Who Needs Them?

It all started at her 3-year-old well child visit with an innocuous:  "Does Madeleine snore?  She has some pretty big tonsils.  She might have obstructed sleep apnea."  Which then led to me panicking thinking Maddy would surely stop breathing in the middle of the night, which then led to a slumber party in Mommy and Daddy's room to monitor her air intake.  A couple weeks later we found ourselves at Children's Hospital, seeing the Otolaryngologist.  He too seemed dismayed at the size of Maddy's tonsils, "Wow, they're almost touching!  They're taking up almost her entire throat!"  Geez, he must see thousands of throats a year but it's our daughter he labels with circus sideshow-sized tonsils.  Well, they are pretty miraculous.

Bright and early Saturday morning we loaded Maddy into the car and made the trek back to Children's.  This was all very thrilling for Madeleine, who was quite pleased her beautiful tonsils were chosen to go in a jar in Dr. T's office.  She only had a brief moment of uncertainty the night before when I told her she would be just fine.  She gave herself a good look in the mirror and said, "Well...I hope so."

Upon our arrival, she was treated like royalty:  a new stuffed animal, special jammies, heated blankets and a special bracelet.  Not to mention the undivided attention from a huge team of doctors and nurses.  Plus, she was going to get to breathe strawberry air to put her to sleep!    

I was able to be with her in the OR until she went to sleep.  Everyone at Children's was SO great!  We are very lucky to have such a great facility for children close to our home.  The procedure itself only took about 20 minutes but we were there for several hours including the pre-show and waiting for Maddy to sleep it off.  When she was finally wheeled back to us she looked very nonplussed and regal, sitting up in the crib, holding a giant Popsicle.  She was a bit groggy but insisted on removing her own IV before we left, much to the amazement of the nurses.  (She also prefers to administer her own medication and, had the anesthesiologist not arrived promptly, would have preferred to remove her own tonsils as well.)

While Madeleine was otherwise disposed, Isabelle was having a terrific time spending the night and morning with her best friend Delaney.  In fact, Isabelle was so well taken care of by my friend Erica, and had such a great time eating out, going to Build-a-Bear and picking out best friend jewelry, it's a wonder she wanted to come home at all!

Maddy's first few hours home were great since she was still pretty loaded up with pain killers and morphine.  We were able to get some fluids into her and get her settled on the couch.  The first night home was pretty rough with Maddy being up several times with pain but I do see she's improving.  She's now just taking regular Tylenol for pain.

One would think that having all the Popsicles, ice cream, pudding, and jello one could want would be pretty fantastic.  Unfortunately, even for a 3-year-old, sweets grow tiresome.  Maddy is still not eating very much, although last night she was sitting on my lap at the dinner table, fake sleeping, when all of a sudden her hand shot across the table, grabbed my sandwich and got a bite in her mouth before I could stop her.  Luckily it went down okay and now I know the sneaky lengths she'll go to to have what her tummy desires - despite the pain.

Now all we need to do is keep her home resting on the couch doing low-key activities for the next week.  That shouldn't be too hard, should it?  Yes, that is the vomit bucket on her head.  It also serves as a great top hat.