Surgery

Since Danielle was born she was a snorer. She breathed super loud and you could feel it in her chest. I could hear her breathe from across a room.  Also the poor girl pretty much had chronic congestion.  When she actually got sick, she would get it first, a week later I would get it for a week and then about a week after I was done, she finally didn't have boogers all over her face.  And usually during the winter she would get sick once a month, so she pretty much had a runny nose 3 out of 4 weeks during the month.  When she was 2 I finally pushed the doctor to have her see an ENT doctor because I just knew she needed her tonsils and adenoids out.  The ENT doc walked in the room and immediately said hello Darth Vador.  Yeah she needs hers out.  But at that point they want kids to weigh 30lbs and she was only at 20lbs.  So I knew it was going to take awhile to fatten her up. We put her on a nasal spray which helped so much with her snoring and congestion.  She still had some sleep apnea but I could tell by her attitude she was actually getting some better sleep.  It was like a whole new girl. Finally this year she weighed enough so I got her in asap.  I wanted to to get done before she started school and before this baby came.  After fighting the insurance to get it approved as medically necessary we finally got it done.  Yahoo but that was a headache!

We got lots of popsicles, jello, pudding. She was actually excited to get them out but little did she know what was going to happen to her.  She was a trooper and I couldn't have been more impressed.  When we were waiting for her to go back she kept asking when she got to go to sleep.  The anesthesiologist kept asking if I felt we should give her something that would calm her, but she was just fine.  They were worried that once I had to leave that she would be upset but I was confident she would be fine. They were probably worried because their was a little boy who was having a rough time and wouldn't even let his parents get him dressed in a gown. I started to worry a little when I saw him so upset but it didn't seem to bother Danielle at all.  The Dr let her choose a flavor of gas that she could have and brought some masks back for us to play with so she would be comfortable with it when it was go time.  He even brought one back for baby so she didn't miss out on the fun. 

She was a complete rock star.  The Doctor said her adenoids were huge but she did awesome.  When she woke up finally they took her upstairs to the peds ward to recover and eat and drink some stuff before they would send her home.  She ate popsicles, drank lots of fluids and ate some jello and was doing great.  We watched some Disney channel and after about an hour and a half we got to leave. Her nurse said that it was her lucky day because Danielle was so easy to deal with and they gave her this super cute teddy bear for being so amazing.  Unfortunately we didn't make it more then about 5 minutes in the car when she threw up all over herself and unfortunately I was in the middle of a big bridge and couldn't pull over for a couple minutes.   When we got home we got bathed and I got her to eat some eggs and some other things. She was so hungry after a long day without food. She was all over the place like nothing happened.  She was making me nervous.  But day 2 it hit her hard. She ran a super high fever and I was about to take her to the ER because I couldn't break it but the Dr said give her a few more hours and then bring her in if she was still that high.  Luckily I gave her one of her meds early and that did the trick but I had a hard time sleeping that night. She did well for about 4 days about taking her medicine and eating some cold things, but day 5-9 were awful.  I could only get her to drink but she wouldn't eat anything and fought me every time on taking her meds.  I was exhausted and broke down crying and called Grandma Debbi to come save the day which I was so thankful for.  I am so glad it is all done and over with but it was a lot more challenging then I thought it would be.

Once she finally started eating again she ate more then I have ever seen her eat.  She lost about 3 lbs which for her was like Johnny losing 20 in one week.  That was a ton, but I think she got it back on now.  I haven't noticed much difference besides she doesn't snore anymore.  I now have to go check her chest to make sure she is breathing because she is so quiet.  I am hoping that she was be less prone to getting sick and actually she has done much better with her potty problems, which I guess is one problem that kiddos who need their tonsils out have.  Weird but hey if it helped I will take it because I was at my wits end with the peeing the pants problem.  Overall it is over and I am relieved.  I am glad we did it before the baby came because that was challenging.  Even poor Lexi was on her own. My favorite thing now is Danielle references things to before she got her tonsils out or after.  It is pretty funny.  At one point she did ask to get them back in and was very upset when I said no.

Over the week I was so thankful for my wonderful friends and family who came and brought her toys, coloring stuff, treats, or sat with her so I could get away for an hour or to get Lexi from school. We felt very loved.