I don't think this was a very good idea!

Caitlyn has sounded stuffy and not been able to breath out of her nose for a couple years now, she also wakes up a lot at night and snores pretty loud.  I really didn't think much about it until I talked to a few people that had a child with the same problems and they told me that getting their tonsils and adenoids out really helped.  In September we took her to an ENT to see what he thought.  As soon as he heard Caitlyn talk he noticed that she couldn't breath out of her nose.  He put a camera in her nose to look at her adenoids and said they were huge and were completely blocking off her ability to breath out of her nose. He also said that the turbinates in her nose were enlarged so he would go in and shrink those (by scraping out the tissue) when he took the adenoids out.  He said her tonsils were big, but not huge so we could decide on getting those out as well.  He advised us to go ahead and take out the tonsils as well instead of risking needing to go back in for another surgery later.  We decided to take that advice and hope that all of these things would help Caitlyn be able to breath better and keep her from waking up so much at night.  The recovery time for a tonsillectomy is two weeks, so we decided to schedule it for the day after Christmas to give her time to recover without missing school.  We considered Fall break and Thanksgiving break, but with how hard her recovery was, I'm so glad we chose December 26th.  She got to enjoy Christmas and then she had the rest of the break to recover.

Caitlyn wasn't nervous about the surgery until that morning.  She thought laying around watching TV all day and eating nothing but ice cream and frozen lemonade sounded great.  Caitlyn started to get more and more nervous when we got to the surgical center.  She was really nervous about the IV and didn't want to get that put in.  The nurses and all of the staff were great and talked through everything with Caitlyn to help her calm down.  Keith and I waited with her for a little over an hour before it was time for them to take her back.

She put on her brave face even though I could tell she was really nervous. The surgery was close to an hour and it felt like ten hours.  I was so nervous the whole time.  Keith and I realized we were starving so he ran and grabbed us some food. We were both relieved when the doctor came out and told us that everything went well.  He said her adenoids were as big as he had ever seen them and that it was good we took the tonsils out because they had infection in them and tonsil stones.  He was great and took time to talk to us and answer all of my questions.  I was relieved when they finally came and got us and said we could come back and sit with Caitlyn.  Poor Caitlyn was miserable.  She was out of all of her blankets, her gown was at her waist and she had one sock on.  The nurse said she was shaking in the operating room so they gave her more blankets.  Caitlyn kept throwing the blankets off her and they thought she was trying to get up so they would tell her to relax and put the blankets back on her.  Finally she said, "I'm hot!" After that they took the blankets off, Caitlyn couldn't wait to get home to her own bed with her fan!  She was still a little out of it and she was talking with a lisp.  The first thing she said was, "I don't think this was a very good idea."  She went on to tell us how much her throat hurt and she wanted us to tell the doctor to put her tonsils back in.  They had a slushy for her and Caitlyn would open her mouth when she wanted more.  I spoon fed her slushy while she rested.  She kept getting agitated and saying how much pain she was in.  At one point she started yelling, "Ten, ten, my pain is a ten."  She also said, "mommy help me, please help me, it hurts so bad."  It broke my heart to see her in so much pain and not be able to do anything.  I forgot how much pain triggers her anxiety.  When Caitlyn is in pain she immediately starts to panic and starts thinking irrationally.  She would get grumpy with me and the nurse and then apologize for being rude.  Poor girl, she was just a mess.  Tiff texted and asked if we wanted her to bring dinner and I gladly accepted. I was so grateful for that and it was such a big help, I had no idea that the recovery room would be so stressful. Caitlyn finally felt ready to go home after about 45 minutes in the recovery room.  They wheeled her out and I sat in the back with her to keep feeding her slushy.  The cold helped soothe her throat.

We got her home in bed and thankfully she fell asleep and slept for a while.  She was so much better after she woke up.  The medicine had kicked in and she was feeling better and the anesthesia had worn off.  It was such a relief to see her doing so much better.  For the first few days I gave her medicine on a schedule.  I would set my alarm at night and go down every few hours and wake her up to take her medicine.  We were surprised and happy with how well she felt those first couple of days.  She didn't have much energy, but she didn't have much pain either.  She was enjoying frozen lemonade and ice cream and doing well.  About day three is when the pain really kicked in and she was pretty miserable for over a week.  It hurt to swallow and she didn't want to eat anything.  She was tired of the frozen lemonade, ice cream and slushies.  She stayed in her room and watched TV for the most part.  She would take naps on and of throughout the day.  We tried to keep her company as much as she wanted.  I loved seeing her and Jonah watching a show together.  By day nine she was starting to feel better.  She still wouldn't eat much, but she was starting to get some energy back.  She was scared to wake up Friday morning to a lot of bleeding in her mouth.  She spit out blood for a few minutes.  Bleeding can happen when the scabs come off so we didn't worry too much about it.  She ended up bleeding two more times over the weekend and then we were concerned.  On Saturday afternoon she started bleeding and she spit out mouthfuls of blood for close to five minutes.  I called the doctor on call and he told us to take her to the emergency room.  We were getting ready to go when her bleeding stopped. We decided to stay home since the bleeding had stopped.  Poor Caitlyn was pale and nauseated and scared.  We got her in bed and called Bro. Vasquez over to help Keith give her a blessing.  We felt like she would be okay and we watched her close to make sure there was no more bleeding.  Monday morning I called the doctor and he said that if she wouldn't stop bleeding they would have to put her back under to cauterize her, but if it stopped on it's own then they wouldn't really do anything.  Caitlyn wanted to go to school and she was feeling pretty good so we stopped and got her some protein shakes and the I took her to school.  Thankfully there was no more bleeding and she is pretty much healed at this point.  She is eating again and has her energy back.  She has noticed a big difference as far as being stuffy and being able to breath out of her nose.  She isn't snoring anymore and hasn't been waking up at night.  I think this was all worth it, but it sure was a long couple of weeks!