David's Surgery

After hearing several pediatricians tell me that David's tonsils were "kissing tonsils" I finally took him to see an ENT who recommended surgery to remove these apparently useless parts of my son's anatomy. He also informed me that David's recovery would take two weeks and be very painful. I thought about how incredibly difficult it would be to add caring for an inconsolable child to my to-do list at this time of my life and almost put it off. However, after some consideration I realized  that there really would be no "good time" for this sort of thing. We simply had to buck up and push forward for David's benefit. The day of surgery finally arrived and David and I made our way to the hospital with blankets, sippy cup, and kindle in tow. 

David pre-surgery and still happily unaware of his fate. 

After changing into a cute hospital gown, my son proceeded to run around pre-op like a madman. He pushed the nurse call button several times. Luckily someone had disabled it before we got there and no one was called the millions of times he pushed it. 

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He played with this mysterious object until he discovered he couldn't break it and then he moved on to something else. He also left the room running several times and I had to track him down before he could leave the hospital. No, I am not exaggerating. 

He found a few minutes to play with the kindle after they gave him the dopey juice. Even after they doped him up he continued to stand up occasionally and sway dangerously as he tried to wreak havoc in the room. 

He was very offended by the id ankle bracelet they put on him and managed to pull off two of them during our stay. 

His surgery was a quick one and they took me back to see him right after I talked with the surgeon who told me that the surgery was a success and that David's tonsils were so big that they had been blocking 75-100% of his airway at all times. My poor baby. In recovery, David was completely out of the body, thrashing and crying widely. He was so strong that we had problems restraining him and he managed to pull part of his iv out in the struggle. He started to bleed out once it was loose and the nurses hurried to remove the rest of the iv so they could bandage him up. As you can probably tell, most of his recovery was very unpleasant for everyone involved. 

My poor sad baby. He couldn't believe that I would let them do that to him. 

This is the last picture I got of him at the hospital before the advil kicked in and he started roaming again. This time the nurse call button was not disabled and David managed to sound the general alarm for the entire wing twice before someone taped a piece of paper over the buttons on the wall to hide them. Oh David.........

Alyson added a note of encouragement to David's bag before we left. She is such an amazing aunt!