Spring Break Tonsilectomy

Well, Rashelle had her surgery today, and she is tonsil and adenoid free. It has been a really interesting process and I have learned a lot. I am sure in the next week I will learn even more.

It all started with a trip to the doctors for a well-check. Actually, my main concern was Rashelle's sleeping habits. She has always been a big sleeper, but it seems like the past year or two it has really interfered with her life. She misses a lot of school because she just doesn't get up. I leave for work and the next thing I know, when I get home, I find out she hasn't gone to school. This happens at least once a week, on average. So we tried grounding her, we tried bedtime routine ideas, I tried rewards and other punishments, but nothing seemed to really work. I'll admit I haven't always been good at following through but I feel I do the best I can. Her main focus in life is to sleep. She would rather sleep than hang out with friends, or eat or anything. She doesn't really have any other problems, just that she wants to sleep all the time. Often, on a normal school day, she is asleep, napping, before I get home, and she can sleep till the next morning. Some days when she stays home, she only gets up once or twice and we don't even see her. Even last summer, on our vacations camping and all, she would rather sleep than go to the lake or go boating or most anything.

I figured something must be wrong. In the past, doctors always kindof dismissed it with the idea that teens sleep a lot, but this was different. So after a screening to check for any signs of depression (she didn't really fit that) the doctor ordered a sleep test, and a visit to the ENT. The doctor said possibly because her tonsils were so huge (always have been) she may have sleep apnea and that may be causing her to need so much sleep.

So we went to the Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist. She was amazed at how huge her tonsils were. From a scale of 1-4, Rashelle was a 3.5 on one side and a 4 on the other. They literally touch. When I explained about the sleep study, the doctor said definately postpone until after the tonsils are removed because in many cases, removing the tonsils fixes the hypersomnia. Amazing....I had no idea.

So today, after 3 IV attempts, Rashelle went under and they took the monsters out. The surgeon said she had a lot of scar tissue from a lot of infections and the tonsils were still a bit infected so recovery was going to be even worse and longer for her. She said it would be a really painful recovery. We have geared up with all the liquids and soft foods and all that to keep her hydrated. That is one of the main concerns especially since Rashelle is so small. And she has her antibiotics and pain meds to keep her good too....so, we'll see how it goes.

One crazy note tht just fits with our family...the doctor said no visitors for a couple days. One, so she can rest, and the other to keep her away from germs. So, we get home and Kendall has 2 friends over, Zack has one, and Travis and Tristah stop by. Tristah is on day 2 of antibiotics for strept throat. Cracks me up. Like this house could ever not have visitors. Rashelle was pretty energetic immediately after coming home. I think she liked being the center of attention. We have seen more of her today than in the last two weeks. She was pretty doped up too, so her pain levels were not too bad. She entertained us all with flashlight views from her new throat which looks cavernous now. It's pretty gross actually. She started to cry when she saw her uvula hanging down to her tongue. You couldn't really see it before and it does look gross now, but it kindof freaked her out. She didn't know what it was. Maybe I'll post pictures! Poor baby.

Speaking of baby, it will feel like I have another one now because I am supposed to wake her up to keep fluids in her and pain medicine round the clock. Pain is funny because they don't want her to get on the low end of a dosage and be in a lot of pain. It is much harder to bring the levels back down than to round the clock maintain. I also can't leave her alone in the rare case that she may start bleeding. She is not to go anywhere far from a hstpital for the next 10 days or so. Happy Spring Break.