Miles' Surgery

So, yesterday we went to Yale for Miles' tonsil and adenoidectomy (T&A as called by the medical community). We pumped him full of apple juice and water until the cut off point of 7:25am hoping to stave off any hunger, since he couldn't eat anything.

We finally made it to Yale Children's and checked in. We were brought into the exam rooms for a checkup to make sure he didn't have any chest infections. Even though he had a cold, his chest was clear. They asked if we would like a Pre-Med for him, and Dena was about to say, "no, we want a Doctor," when the nurse explained it was a medicine to help Miles relax. Well, relax it did! We were ready to play some Pink Floyd for him when the doctor came in and said they were ready. Phil went in with him until he fell asleep, and about 25 minutes later they came to tell us he was done.

We were in the recovery room for quite awhile, about 1 1/2 hours before he woke up completely, which was good, since when he woke up, most of the disorienting anesthesia had worn off, making him much happier (or as happy as one can be after surgery). They gave him a little Morphine to ease the pain, to which Miles said after it kicked in, "Mommy, I happy..." We asked for Tylenol from then on. He had a cup of juice (which surprised them that he was drinking so soon) and some Popsicle and then it was time to go to our room.

We got there, and Miles was pretty much done with the hospital at this point. He wanted to get down, he wanted nothing to do with the new bed. But he calmed down as we were able to get a TV with a DVD player, and he watched who knows how many hours of TV during our stay. We got some food, and Miles the eater decided he wanted some, so we gave him, according to the doctor, "whatever he wants" to eat. From 11:30- 8:00 he had eaten- bread, graham crackers, juice, some Sun Chips, noodles, turkey, gravy, and Jello (and then in the morning he had pancakes, a hard-boiled egg, more Jello, and juice).

The stay was less than comfortable, however, as we got stuck in a double room. The poor kid next to us was there for a ruptured appendix, that put him in the OR on his 8th birthday. They took up about 3/4 of the room and got 2 cots for the one parent that stayed with him (we had one cot that Phil slept in, and Dena slept in the bed with Miles). To top it off the kid had to endure nurses coming in about every hour with something new to give him, which gave way to lots of crying and screaming at god-awful hours of the night. The only good thing was that Miles slept through the entire thing, from 9:30pm-6:30am. This on top of the fact that his snoring was clearly only from inflammation from the T&A and not from the apnea leads us to be hopeful that the procedure will be deemed a success.

Thanks for all the well- wishes!