Spencer's Surgery

We took Spencer to see an ENT over his spring break in March.  I thought for sure the ENT would recommend that Spencer get his tonsils and adenoids taken out, but the final recommendation was an adenoidectomy and a bilateral resection of turbinates.  

Now, I don't know everything there is to know about anatomy and physiology, but I do know more than the average person because of what I do for a living.  Not so much about the rest of the body, but certainly the nose and the throat.  And I had never, in all my life, even heard of turbinates.  But apparently, when you have allergies, they get all junked up and cause all sorts of problems.  And, yes, all junked up is the official medical terminology.

I read up on both procedures and both of them are quite simple.  My only concern was that Spencer needed general anesthesia and needed to be intubated during the procedure.

We went in to the surgery center on April 16th at just after 8 am.  I thought for sure that they would need to start an IV in Spencer while he was awake and that it was going to be the most awful thing ever.  Thankfully, this surgery center is staffed by awesome people who know how to work with children and they gas the kids first, knock them out and then start the IV.

I filled out about a bajillion pieces of paperwork and Spencer just chilled.  He was allowed to bring 1 stuffed animal with him.  He picked Yoshi.  Only 1 nurse (and not the ENT or the anesthesiologist) knew who Yoshi was.  Apparently they spent their childhoods prepping for a career in medicine and not playing Nintendo.  OR, they were already too old when Nintendo came out.  Discuss.

I thought the bruise on his leg looked terrible, so I made him cover it.

All prepped and ready to go.

I had just barely updated my facebook status and gotten comfy in my chair in the waiting room when the doctor came out to tell me Spencer was done.  I think the whole thing took about 25 minutes.  It was another 20 minutes before they let me come back to see him though. 

And then the fun began.

Apparently kids react very differently to anesthesia compared to adults.  This is what Spencer looked like when I first went back.

And then suddenly, out of no where, he sat up, flipped around a few times, violently scratched his head, flipped and rolled a few more times and then crashed again.

This happened over and over and over.  I kept asking the nurse if it was OK and she assured me that all kids come out of anesthesia like that.  The nurses even call it the crocodile roll.  It was slightly horrifying and slightly hilarious.

After about 30 minutes he really started coming back and was awake enough to have some water and some otter pops.  He didn't complain about any pain other than his throat, which was from the intubation. 

After about an hour we were allowed to go home.  The whole shebang took just over three hours.  Spencer went to bed when we got home and slept for about an hour.  Then he woke up and was hungry.  He requested donuts.

He was tired all day and went to bed early that night but seriously, by the next day he was pretty much fine.  

He had headaches for the next 3 days, which I think was probably due to the swelling in his nose, but by the 4th day he didn't even have those headaches anymore.  He has been using saline spray 5 times a day to keep his nose moist and to keep it from crusting so much, but even at about day 7 there wasn't any blood or crust left.  He did get a huge amount of mucus out after about 9 days.  It was almost comical how much crap came out of his nose.  And after that was all out I have never, in his life, heard him breathe more clearly.  He has a follow up appointment on Wednesday but I am confident in saying that he has recovered just fine and will hopefully have some long term breathing benefits because of this.

Yay!