Wednesday, June 4, 2008

It's Over!

Well, the pictures are still in my camera, but I'm going to post anyway to let you know that Timothy's' tonsillectomy is over and we're home! We have been gone since 8:30 this morning and got home around 7:30 this evening. What a long, long day!

Timothy was all excited to go to the hospital this morning and cooperated so well prior to the surgery, actually, for the entire hospital stay! We had a little blip in the plans this morning when I was going over the pre-op paperwork with the nurse. I noticed that his papers stated that his tonsils and adnoids were to be removed. We hadn't discussed adnoids before. We got that straightened out as I reviewed the doctor's report from our last two visits. Fine...but then there was the additional statement that he was also supposed to have tubes put in!! I KNEW that this had to be an error because his hearing tests all came back clean! Phone calls started going, discussions began, questions were raised. Finally word came back from Dr. P himself saying that this was indeed an error and there are NO tubes going in! Whew! I'm not sure who wrote up all the requests, but I'm wondering if it wasn't the pre-op nurse. I say that because as I was sitting beside her while she plugged in all the info into her computer, I had to correct her several times because she entered quite a few incorrect items into the system. Kind of scary ...

Around 11:15, Nurse Christine came and took Timothy by the hand and gave me a confident pat on the back saying that they'd see me shortly. The two of them walked down the hall together. I don't have a clue what they talked about, but Timothy was quite animated as he answered all her questions. They walked away to have fun ... I stood there fighting those maternal tears.

Forty minutes later, they called me from the waiting room to come be with my little guy in recovery. All had gone well and he was just starting to wake up. By the time we got up to the children's unit, Timothy was quite awake and starting to jabber. I could tell that it was uncomfortable, especially because he told me there was stuff in his nose and mouth that needed to come out, but he was doing great.

Six hours, two popcicles, two ice creams, two attempted yogurts and a glass of apple juice and water later, we were on our way home. Nurse Kathy was such a sweetheart. This amazing woman has a photographic memory because when I came in, she asked me where my glasses were. She said that the last few times I had been in (we're talking 1.5 years ago for Timothy's other surgery, two years ago with Christopher and 3.5 years ago with Timothy again) I had been wearing glasses. She said my contacts threw her off and she almost didn't recognize me. She asked how Fred's computer business was doing (yes, she remembered his name AND his business) and wondered how all the other boys were. She reminded me which rooms I was in with which boys and then told me that I hadn't gotten a handmade quilt from the Waterloo Quilting Society when the boys were born, so she went and got three quilts for them. The woman is amazing, and is an excellent, excellent nurse! She's quiet, but amazing!

Timothy gave us some trouble tonight when I tried to give him his Tylenol. I knew he would do this, and I have a feeling it's going to be a struggle to get it into him the next few days. I'm not sure how we're going to do this, but the guy will need something to take him through! Please pray for his cooperation in this area.

Thank you all for praying for him and for me. We are done with the hospital end of things and now we just need prayers for his cooperation and healing. Those of you that have been through this before, I'll take any suggestions you have for getting the pain medication down a three year old's throat without creating a huge uproar. Thanks!

1 comment:

liz said...

Poor Timothy! I'm so glad he's feeling better! He'll probably look back on all this as a great adventure or at least something to brag about (that's what happened with our kids' broken bones and stiches).