Tonsillectomy

Poor Hayden has sounded like Darth Vader ever since she has been about a year old.  So at 1 1/2 we had her adenoids removed, which helped, but her breathing was still very strained while sleeping.  Paul and I could hear her snoring anywhere in our house!  So we knew it was time to have the tonsils removed now that she was a bit older.  When the doctor saw them again now that she is 3 1/2 he was shocked at how big they were.  On a scale of 1-4 hers were a 4+.  He said it was essential to remove them because if she got sick and they became swollen it would completely obstruct her airway.  I'm thankful now that she hasn't had many problems getting sick!  When she had little colds, she would struggle to breath at night and had sleep apnea.

So the surgery was scheduled for June 10th 2013.  We talked a lot about what was going to happen and used the words, "the Dr. is going to make your tonsils smaller so you can breath better," instead of "he's going to cut them out!"  I told her she was going to get to watch as much TV and movies as she wanted and drink milk and eat popsicles all day.  She was way pumped!

The morning of the surgery we had to wake her up at 5:45 and she jumped out of bed and was so excited to get there.  She enjoyed laying in the bed during all the registration and even got a new present for cooperating with all the Dr's and nurses!  They gave her some calming medicine, which was hilarious to watch her once it kicked in.  She was out of it and could not even answer simple questions.  She'd just stare at us and giggle.

The surgery went well as expected and only lasted about 25 minutes.  The nurses led us to her room where she was starting to come out of the anesthesia.  She was crying a bit which the nurses say is normal because they are disoriented.  She slept about an hour longer and then we woke her up and started getting ready to go home.  She refused to drink apple juice or eat a popsicle which kind of delayed things, but she finally drank a little water so we could go.  She got to ride in a wagon to the car and thought this was awesome!

We had several friends come visit her on Monday and dropped off popsicles.  Thanks Erin Barnes and the Heinhold family!  And my new friend Teresa came by and gave Hayden a Barbie Mermaid.  She's carried it around all week!  The first few days were great as long as I kept giving her pain meds every 4 hours all day and night.  By the 3rd day she really stopped eating much of anything and it was a struggle to get her to drink anything.  Although she was happy which I am grateful for.  Today we're on day 8 and she seems to be over the worst part.  She hasn't needed medicine today and ate better than she has in awhile!

I'm glad she's been a happy girl, but I can't wait for our life to be back to normal again and for her to be eat normal food!