Bye Bye Tonsils

On Wednesday May 30th Will had his tonsils and adenoids removed.  It has been a rough several days for him but I think we are rounding the corner.  It is actually a 14 day recovery period before he can return to  normal activity and eating.  We are watching a lot of movies, playing board games and eating lots of ice cream and popsicles. 

They don't normally remove tonsils in a 3 year old but they had to go.  What led to this we may never know exactly but I hope this solves some of his issues.  Will is almost 4 and I can count with my fingers the number of nights he has actually slept an entire night straight through.  We have what I thought to be night terrors, nightmares, bed wetting and many other issues at night.  There have been many times I have wondered what I am doing wrong and what I can do differently.  We have tried everything from being mean (thinking it's a behavioral issue), lights on, lights off, sleeping with us, his own room to using melatonin.....nothing has worked. 

I saw an ENT at the beginning of the year asking if he could possibly have sleep apnea and it was ruled out at the time.  I was kinda left thinking that this is just my son and I just have to find a way to deal with it.

Fast forward a couple months and Mike and I notice that Will's tonsils are extremely large.  He never complained about a sore throat, never had a fever and tonsils are not something you look at every day so we don't know exactly when it started.  We were into the pediatrician several times and he never tested positive for strep.  His tonsils were the size of ping pong balls and we finally ended up back at the ENT.  Over those couple weeks I swear they continued to get bigger and Will started losing weight because he wasn't eating.  His sleeping was worsening too and he was snoring like a freight train. The ENT took one look and said they had to go along with his adenoids. 

After the surgery I was somewhat relieved but also didn't like to hear the news that not only did he have sleep apnea but he is also a breath holder. I guess during surgery and coming out of the anesthesia his O2 levels kept dropping into the 80's. What does this mean? Well, hopefully the sleep apnea will be cured by this but the breath holding is a separate issue and we will just see where we end up.

Here is Will getting his ride to the OR, playing in the pre-op room and in the recovery room.

Nana & stuffed animals make it all better!!