At the end of January, Maya had her tonsils and adenoids removed. She was a little nervous before the surgery but she was so brave! We had a special cartoon book that helped her understand what would happen during the surgery and that helped her to understand and not be so afraid. We also reminded her that the doctors would put her in a special sleep so she wouldn't feel anything during the surgery.
The nurses were so kind and so great with her. They let her listen to her heartbeat with the stethoscope and kept everything light and calm. They let her pick a chap stick flavor to put on her special mask to help the laughing gas smell good. She picked raspberry. :) When they came to get her, she got her choice of whether to walk or ride in a special car into the OR. She chose to ride and was pretty excited about it. They wheeled her away pretty quickly while I was talking to the nurse but Darin said she was happy. The nurses said the only moment of panic she had was once she got to the OR she looked around for us and realized we weren't there. Darin and I went to the waiting room and I tried, unsuccessfully,not to cry throughout the whole procedure. I knew she would be fine but I was just so emotional about it. After about 30 minutes, the doctor came out and spoke to us about how the procedure went (very well), and after about 15 more minutes she was ready for us to see her!
Maya really did an amazing job with her recovery. She had some extra special pain meds during the surgery which gave us about an 18 hour "honeymoon" where she felt ok. She ate 2 bowls of chocolate pudding, 2 bowls of applesauce and lots of juice. Days 2-8 were quite a bit rougher and she went through most of the expected things...fever, very severe sore throat, tiredness, pain while talking. She kept up with her juice drinking though with lots of prodding, and so she never was in danger of dehydration which was wonderful. She took her pain meds every 4 hours (even the yucky one which Daddy diluted with water for her) and we even woke her up once at night for pain meds too which helped her sleep better. The first week she just wanted to lay down and watch TV most of the time and she felt pretty awful. It hurt to talk, so she mimed a bit, cried a lot, and rested a lot. Nolan went to school 2 days that first week and took a sick day himself due to a bad cold.
Maya did give us a scare though. On day 9 (when the scabs fall off) she vomited up about a cup of fresh blood (and blood clots) which we were warned about. The tonsils sit close to a major artery in the throat and if there is any fresh bleeding it can quickly turn fatal. When we called the on-call doctor they told us if she did it again we had to bring her to the ER immediately. Luckily, she never did. And that was the start of her feeling better!
In preparation for her 2-week recovery, we had lots of sit-down activities for the later days when she felt better but still wasn't allowed to be active. Plus, we had lots of very kind friends and family who gave her quiet activities as get-well gifts, get-well cards and ice cream. I think she felt like a bit of a celebrity. :)
Nolan was still wanting to keep busy though, so we had lots of activities for him to keep him engaged. The first one was this "mining for gold" activity he got for Christmas. We set it up in the garage on some newspapers and he chiseled away at it for quite some time (with some help from Mommy).
Maya joined us in her winter coat. Every time she swallowed her throat hurt and so she covered her mouth like this. Poor thing. I think this was maybe day 6 and she was all TV'd out and wanted to come watch us mine for gold instead of watch TV. You know a kid has watched lots of TV when they choose watching someone chisel a rock instead of watching their favorite show!
After we had found all the gold pieces, we brought them inside and cleaned all the soot off with a toothbrush.
Another activity that was so fun was this Melissa and Doug sticker by number picture. They were such cute teammates when putting this one together. Nolan found each sticker in order and Maya put it in the picture where it went.
We also had lots of fun one day with Shrinky Dinks. They each got some for their birthday and Maya got a big fairy set for Christmas. These were a huge hit! We had never done them before and they were amazed.
Nolan's Shrinky Dinks were Spiderman.
We always had juice on hand everywhere to encourage Maya to drink all day and Nolan especially liked his with a straw.
Time to bake!
Peeking and waiting for them to be done! Some of Maya's were fairies that had wings that attached and sat in a 3-D fairy garden. So cute!
Another game we/they played after Maya was feeling well enough to talk a bit was Hedbanz. Each person has a card on their head with an object and they have to ask certain questions to see if they can guess what object they are! This if a fun family game too but the kids enjoyed it enough they played just the 2 of them.
One day the kids told me they knew how to do an invisible teeter totter...and they demonstrated!
Of course, Lego's are a great sit-down activity!
Maya was really into these (another break from the monotony of TV) and we put together all of these sets.
A couple of days before she was cleared to be "active" we had a snow storm. The kids desperately wanted to play together outside so I put on their snow gear and off they went! Maya wanted to eat the snow (she isn't crying...she's trying to catch snow flakes on her tongue).
The slide was the best...it had snow at the bottom which made it so slippery. The kids slid right out the bottom into the snow! HAHA! They loved it! I got some action shots which don't really capture the elation and joy of the moment, but hopefully you get the idea.
Wheeeee!
We are so happy to report that Maya has made a full recovery from her surgery and she is doing so well. The main reason for it was because she wasn't able to breathe through her nose hardly at all due to enlarged adenoids and she was snoring and having very disruptive sleep at night, causing her to be tired. Now she sleeps so soundly and QUIETLY! Her breathing is so clear and quiet. Having her tonsils out has ended her Periodic Fever Syndrome (we think) and also gives her more space to breathe in her throat too. We hope this will be a wonderful change for her in her life. My mom asked me the other day if I noticed a difference in her energy level and today I can say for sure I CAN. After a full day of school (9am-2:30) usually she is lethargic and grouchy (her teachers told me often that she was tired during the day). Today when I picked her up and we went to Costco (our usual routine) she was bouncing up and down the aisles and had so much energy. Yay! Now that it's over, I'm so glad we decided to go through with it. Our hope was always that Maya would be able to concentrate in school and be well-rested enough to do her best learning. Mission Accomplished.
No comments:
Post a Comment