Today was Olivia's tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. She has been anticipating it with glee, mostly out of sheer ignorance. "Fox in socks (stuffed) is going with me to the hospital. I'm going to take the special medicine and then say 1-2-3 and then go to sleep! I'm going to be very brave!" So, with this preparation, she showed up eager to please and in a good mood.
The nurse read her bracelet and listened to her heart. Later, they came and gave her some "goofy meds" which, of course, made her tired and groggy. She happily downed the nasty-tasting stuff and then hated how she felt as she got groggy. They wheeled her away as she was drifting in and out.
When she got back into the room after surgery (which was short and successful, by the way), she was swinging mad and crying. My throat hurts! Where's my mom?! Where's my medicine?! Where's my drink?! I WANT A DRINK ALREADY!
They got her to her room and we got her calmed down relatively quickly by getting her a drink (!) and having me in bed with her head in my lap. That probably helped the most. Once she settled, she got some ibuprofen and drifted off to sleep. Things have been going pretty well since then, with a few outbursts. For the most part, she's been groggy and hungry and relatively cooperative on the fluids thing. I'm encouraged by the list of things she's eaten since we've been home: yogurt, cotton candy, baked chicken, green beans, mac & cheese, pancakes and ice cream. That's impressive! We'll see what the next few days hold.
The worst part of the day was listening to all of the OTHER tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy patients wailing. No doors in outpatient surgery...only curtains. The wails coming from other kids (who obviously weren't handling recovery quite as well as Olivia) caused a little anxiety before surgery but exacerbated her anxiety after surgery. Thankfully, she was groggy enough to sleep through some of it.
For the most part, she was quite the little trooper and did very well. Doc said she had huge tonsils and adenoids, and her sinuses were also infected. We suspect that she's pretty much chronically infected because she has cold symptoms five weeks out of six. Doc says that adenoids make that worse, so this should improve the situation quite a bit.
I sincerely hope so.
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