Luke has had allergy problems for quite a few years now. His nose constantly runs (seriously - constantly), he's always had dark circles around his eyes, spoke just slightly nasally (is that a word?), mouth breathed... you get the point. He's seen an allergist, who had just given him adult meds, and more meds and different meds every time that I suggested that they didn't seem to have a noticeable effect on the problem. I had assumed that she'd have said something about hos tonsils or adenoids if she thought that may be a problem... but, i guess not. I finally asked his pediatrician if she thought that his tonsils or adenoids might be the cause of any of his ailments, and she immediately took note of the mouth breathing and sent us for an x-ray. (LOVE her!) A good pediatrician is better than chocolate. Even the good expensive chocolate. (sorry, she's not accepting new patients) I had a message on my machine before i even got home that day letting me know that his Tonsils seemed fine, but his Adenoids were "prominent" and a referral was sent to see an ENT specialist.
I was pretty excited about how quickly this was all coming together. If I'd had any clue how quickly it would really ALL come together soon enough.... I'd probably have pee'd myself! Well, or something... perhaps not have pee'd, lol. (That'd put a damper on things. Ha!!)
Just to give you a timeline, this was about early to mid March.
So, I called the ENT, and the receptionist said "I'll check for an appointment, but we're booked well past May." May, really? I might have an answer to finally help my poor runny nosed, foggy headed, allergy ridden child, and you're telling me we'll have to wait to even be seen until May?!?! (Luckily i just screamed that in my head, where only I can hear how much of an impatient crazy person I am.) ;) "Oh wait, we do have a cancellation on the 29 of this month." She says. Woohoo!! We'll take it! Any time! So off we go the 29th to meet with our new ENT Doctor. Once again I lucked out. She was so nice, spoke to both Luke & I, was psyched that his pediatrician had already done an X-ray to save her some time, and said "Well, those Adenoids have to come out." Simple as that. I was given a card with a number to call to get it set up, told to watch him sleeping for a few nights first, because if he had any kind of apnea they'd take the Tonsils too, and that was that!
From then on I'd joked about how great would be if I could get the Adenoids out during April vacation. But seriously... I was just happy that the ball seemed to be rolling as a steady pace without any road blocks. I couldn't expect them to act that quickly.
I watched Luke sleep for a few nights, and all was clear. No choking or anything, so the Tonsils would stay. Just Adenoid surgery is a shorter recovery time anyway (1day!), so we're pretty happy with that. So, I called the number on the card to make the appointment. "Does April 22nd work for you?" Hmm... that's GG's Birthday (she'll understand), Good Friday, two days before Easter, and APRIL VACATION!!!!!!!! For real, it was so difficult to contain my happiness so that this woman didn't think (find out) i was some sort of crazy. April freakin vacation!! Are you kidding me?! I could seriously feel God smiling at me. I could've high five'ed him. So of course I said yes, and the date was set.
My next task was to make sure Luke would be ok with all of this, and not be freaked out or scared or anything. (man, this is becoming quite the long back story - sorry! I've never been good at summarizing!) We pumped up the surgery quite a bit. We just talked about how his Adenoids were what was making him feel sick and have a runny nose, how they'd give him medicine to take a little nap, and when he woke up the Adenoids would be gone... He thought that was all sounding pretty cool. The fact that his voice might be different was even more of a selling point for him. He actually began counting down the days to his surgery because he was so excited about it! Zach was a little concerned, asking Luke a few times, "are you sure you'll be ok?" but Luke couldn't be thrown off his happy course, responding "Yea, I'm brave."
The day came and even when I could feel myself getting a little on edge (day surgery or not - they're workin on my baby!!), and Luke was still really excited. (seriously, you would have thought we were going to Disney or something, lol) His Aunt Nicole surprised him by showing up at the Hospital for support, and she brought him a brand new blue Puffle. The doctor's gave him cool scrubs, a backpack, let him choose Root Beer scent for the laughing gas, gave him a wagon ride to the operating room... his day just kept getting better. If I can figure out how to get a few pictures on here I will. It was great. He really made me such a proud Momma!
So here's where the "you have to blog this" part comes in.
I decided that i'd be the one to go in the operating room with Luke. (For a few reasons, but mainly bc I'm a control freak and I needed to see him drift off safe & sound) They'd told Luke that the Root Beer smell would go away and then he'd smell something like furniture polish. Yummo. He seemed pretty ok with it. They layed him down, belted him to the table and a man was holding the mask on him with the Root Beer scent while Luke pretended to sleep (because he knew that was supposed to be the outcome). I held Luke's hand (mostly I guess for my own comfort, he barely held back). Then the man says that he's going to turn on the laughing gas. Well let me tell you - there was nothing funny happening after that!! Luke's eyes shot open wide all scared like, and he started squirming on the table. The man seemed to hold the mask on a little tighter, and Luke gripped my hand really tight. There was this other man, nice enough when we met him a few moments ago, but now he's "the story teller" so he's telling Luke a Star Wars story, talking all fast and getting into some technical talk about quadrants and all sorts of star wars jargon that was way over my head, let alone Luke's (just because his name's Luke, doesn't mean he knows about star wars!), and why was he telling the story so fast? It shot my anxiety up, so I could only imagine how my little drugged up Luke felt! All while rubbing the side of Luke head...
This all happened in a matter of seconds, then Luke's eyes slowly rolled to the back of his head (like he'd died) and the gas mask man was now holding his head up. He kept his head up, and said "Give him a kiss Mom". Well, I'd already started crying. I felt like I'd watched them hold down & kill my kid! Seriously, that's what it looked like, a really nice 'let's put you to sleep' killing. I had to pry his fingers off my hand even after he was asleep, to lean over & kiss him. (which made it seem even more like I was kissing him 'goodbye') I know, whatever, I'm a dramatic bawl bag!! It was seriously a scarring experience for me!!
Then, then (!), I had to leave the room. It took all I had to keep the cry from going to a full on shoulder sob. Plus, this man had to walk me back (a different man than the two that had "killed" my kid, thankfully). He was nice enough, but it was clearly an awkward walk, as i was trying to remind myself of what was really happening and to stop crying. It's freakin DAY surgery!
So, blah blah blah, surgery was very quick and went well. The end. ;)
No really, surgery went awesome! Luke woke up not even remembering the horrifying tragedy that I'd experienced. (he actually asked why it was taking so long to take his Adenoids out and was so surprised to find out they already had!) He was asking for a McDonald's Fish Filet within the half hour (to which he got a resounding NO! Then he threw up.).
The next morning we had an Easter Breakfast at church and I think Luke ate about 6 pancakes, at least 2 if not 3 cups of scrambled eggs, some sausage links, and anything else they were serving (x5).
Immediately we've seen the dark circles around his eyes go away, his voice is a little higher, and his nose hasn't run once since the surgery.
Can I say one more time that I love my pediatrician?!
