A tonisllectomy and adenoidectomy in pictures: Slightly boring

Only four days after Sarah's third birthday, she was scheduled for a necessary removal of her tonsils and adenoids.  Both were extremely enlarged causing snoring, sleep apnea, multiple ear infections and ever-present opaque, yellowish mucus.  (Sorry for that last detail, but it is important.)

 The surgery was at the Pembroke Hospital, an hour away from home, and we had to be there at 7am. So, I decided that it would be best to rent a hotel a room and take Hannah with me so that I could leave Sarah's bedside and run to the bathroom and cafeteria.  Also, as my mother reminded me, Hannah is wonderful at keeping up one's spirits.  The night before the surgery, we went to East Side Mario's in an attempt to get Sarah to fill up on food before the fasting began.  All she ate/drank was a large chocolate milk.

She was very excited to sleep in a bed with her sister, if not a little confused as to why she was sleeping in a strange bed in an even stranger room.  The girls fell asleep relatively quickly, but I didn't doze off till nearly 2am.  We had to be at the hospital at 7am for an 8:45 am surgery.  Somehow, we either overslept the alarm or the alarm didn't work, and I was jostled from sleep the next morning by Hannah yelling, "Mom!!  It's 7am and we just woke up!!"  We have never packed and brushed out teeth so quickly.  I remember Hannah saying, "Don't worry, Mom, your hair is fine." Sarah was woken up and angrily got dressed and hustled to the van.  We arrived at the surgery unit at 7:20 ... and no one even noticed!

Sarah hates to wear clothing other than specific outfits that she keeps in a weekly rotation.  Prior to the nurse handing us the day-surgery uniform, I hadn't thought about how she would feel about hospital-issued pyjamas...  Somehow I managed to wrangle her into them with promises of Dora and treats.  I think.  Truthfully, one week after the surgery I actually can't remember how I got her to put on her hospital blues.

Here we are waiting in the second of two waiting rooms where the surgeon and anaesthesiologist would meet with us prior to the procedure.  Her nose was still running and I was wiping it even moments before she left me for the operating room.  She was also very upset about having to take off her amber necklace with attached Miraculous Medal.  You can see it on the table to her right.

Still, she managed a smile, even if it was a little resigned.

An attempt to open her mouth wide for the doctor.  I was very nervous about handing her off to the doctor and nurse prior to surgery.  I have been through three surgeries with Jacob at the children's hospital in Ottawa.  By the third surgery, protocol had changed and a parent was allowed to accompany the child all the way to the OR and to remain with the child until the anaesthetic was administered.  This change in protocol makes a huge difference to both parent and child.  Sarah's surgery was at an adult hospital that still follows the old protocols, for understandable reasons.  Thus, after meeting with the surgeon, the anaesthetist arrived with an OR nurse to explain about magic gas. She was a small woman in her 40s with the kindest eyes; perfect eyes for someone who wears a mask most of her working day.  Eyes that had the ability to convey reassurance, calm and love to a worried patient; the sort of eyes that one might stare into as one drifts off to sleep.  After explaining the procedure to me, this doctor turned to Sarah and began to describe the mask, the sleeping gas and how it differs from real sleep.  I actually thought, "Hmmm, I don't think Sarah has any idea of what you are speaking.  Maybe you should stop."  Thankfully, I stayed quiet and continued to listen as she described a magic bridge which they would cross (the catwalk to the OR) and the magic key that Sarah could hold to open the door.  And then she said, "OK, Sarah, now you are going to come with me."  Hannah and I braced for all out panic, and Sarah went willingly into the doctor's arms and left us without once looking back.  I think Hannah's jaw hit the floor.  I thank the Sacrament of the Sick that Sarah received the day before.

I was told that the surgery would take 45 minutes, but Sarah was gone for well over an hour and my mind began to race with dire possibilities.  Hannah could sense my nervousness and reassured me, "Mom, she probably cried so much that they had to delay the start of the operation."  Soon enough we got the call to meet Sarah halfway between our waiting room and the OR.  Hannah got a blurry picture of Sarah lying in her hospital-issue crib under a pile of white flannel sheets.  My heart nearly broke in two and I was brought back to Jacob at 18 months being carried back from his first eye surgery.

As we walked back, the nurse told me what a dolly Sarah had been.  Apparently in the recovery room the nurses had asked her if she wanted stickers.  She had replied, "No, thank you."  Even with her tonsils and adenoids freshly removed and morphine coursing through her system, she remembered her manners!  Once we arrived back in the room, she woke up and began to cry and vomit.  This is normal, but still quite scary for a mother to watch.  As soon as she saw me, she came out of her crib and slept on my shoulder for a good long while.

Eventually she asked to go back in her crib where she would alternate between sleeping, moaning and eating popsicles.

She was so compliant in her recovery that she was allowed home at 5pm and we gladly bid goodbye to the Day Surgery unit.  The day was mostly uneventful except for three times when a code yellow was announced over the PA system.  Curious as to what code yellow meant, the mother of the patient next to us googled the hospital code system and shared with us that the meaning of code yellow was that a violent patient was loose.  Ha!  With each code yellow, the announcer would include a location.  At one point, after we had learning the code's meaning, Hannah looked at me with wide eyes and gravely remarked, "I was just there, Mom."

Hannah was such a sweetheart.  Several times she had to run to the van and to the cafeteria to fetch me things that I had forgotten.  At one point she went to the cafeteria to buy herself lunch.  She arrived back with a tuna sandwich which she shared with me.  As I gladly chowed down on my half, I asked why she wasn't eating and she replied that she didn't want to eat in front of Sarah because Sarah was unable to eat.  My eyebrows raised in embarrassment as I looked at my half-eaten sandwich and realized how much kinder my eldest daughter is than me!  I guess that's a good sign.

We arrived home at around 7pm and spent a less than fretful night doped up on Tylenol and morphine - yes, morphine.  Sarah is recuperating remarkably well.  She has her moments in which she grips her ears and cries, but she just troops through and reluctantly accepts pain medication.  I was very worried about this surgery prior to the day and wondered if we should be going through with it.  I must remark that the results proved that the surgery was necessary.  Her snoring and sleep apnea immediately disappeared and, by far the greatest miracle, the runny nose that I wiped minutes before she left for the OR, hasn't been wiped since.  The poor little thing must have had some sort of continuous nasal infection.  A few hours after the surgery I ran into the surgeon and asked him if her adenoids had proved as large as he had expected.  He raised his brow and nodded slowly, "They are supposed to be a half teaspoon in size.  They were each the size of a tablespoon."  No wonder she's breathing easier.  We are all glad to have this day behind us and are looking forward to a happier and healthier little girl.  Thank you for all the prayers.