So, Max had surgery this past Friday to remove his adenoids and tonsils. It was a long day, but Max was a trooper and I am very proud of him. As he would say "I rocked it."
I will start from the beginning. For a while now (more than a year) Max has been grinding his teeth when he sleeps. I thought it was odd for a six-year-old. I switched to a new dentist and back in May I asked the new dentist about his teeth grinding. The dentist said this isn't normal and his background is in pediatrics and he studied sleep apnea. He told me to get his adenoids checked out because he would bet anything his adenoids were large and it was causing him not to sleep at night. He also asked me if he was tired and I let him know this kid is tired all the time and can sleep anywhere, but I figured it's from the medicine he takes for his epilepsy since the side effects said it can cause one to be tired. In June, I took him to see his pediatrician for an annual checkup and the pediatrician said the teeth grinding is normal and not to be concerned. That didn't sit right with me. I just had a gut feeling there is more to it. We then saw his neurologist for his routine checkup and I asked the neurologist what he thought. He said that teeth grinding is not normal and the medicine he is on shouldn't cause him to be exhausted like he always is. He suggested we see an ENT. Fast forward to the end of July for Max's ENT appointment and it was determined we would have a sleep study done to see if Max has sleep apnea. At this point, he cannot determine if his adenoids are too large without a scan being done. We made the sleep study appointment for when we got back from Durango and I went with Max for the overnight stay.
This was a long night because the guy kept coming in every hour to fix the wires that Max was hooked up to since they kept falling off. Every time he came into the room he flipped on the lights. Needless to say at 5:30am when he woke us up to send us home I was exhausted.
At first, Max thought the wires were funny...
But, more wires were added and a "tube for his nose" was added. This picture shows how unhappy he is with me for this.
About four weeks later we got the results from the sleep study that Max has sleep apnea and he has no REM sleep. No wonder why he was so tired all the time. The doctor recommended we just take out the adenoids and tonsils without a scan since there is obviously something blocking his airway, but little did I know how much blockage.
For the surgery Max was not able to eat anything past 1:45 AM on Friday morning, so we ordered IHOP and Max had his breakfast at midnight and then went back to bed.
Due to COVID, only one parent could be with Max in the hospital for his surgery, so I took Max to the children's hospital at 7:00am. It was a long day of starvation...for me. Max was a trooper. He did awesome! He never complained about being hungry and just was the best patient. I too never ate anything all day because that wasn't fair to Max since he couldn't eat. I didn't want him to watch me eat. That wouldn't have been nice. While we were waiting for Max's surgery, we watched movies together and snuggled up on the bed.
Notice the too-short pants! I don't think they anticipated such a tall seven-year-old.
They took Max back for surgery around 10:20. He was in surgery for only 30 minutes and I snuck into the hallway to wolf down a Larabar quickly since they weren't allowing parents to leave the waiting room or eat/drink anything in the waiting room either. After the quick 30 minutes, Max's doctor came out to tell me that he's doing great and that he found out his adenoids were blocking 2/3 of his airways and his tonsils were 25% larger than what he initially thought. He said no wonder why he struggled. He told me we would have a very energetic kid once he fully healed in about three weeks.
He was so tired after surgery and I just hung out until he was ready to go home.
After discharge and hanging out at the pharmacy we made it home around 2:00pm. We tucked Max into our bed and he watched his favorite shows.
Max spent the past week eating all the ice cream and pudding he wanted to and when he wanted to. I also gave him free rein of the TV without restrictions. He got to play video games for however long he wanted to. That was the deal going into the surgery.
Today was his first day back at school. He still has to take it easy and no PE class or no activity at recess, but he is happy to be back at school with his friends. I am just excited for him to have more energy and play with his friends without being too tired all the time. He too is very excited that he told me he won't be stuck playing goalie all the time at recess when they play soccer. He's excited to play on the field running around with his friends. Oh, I am so happy for him. I originally questioned if we were doing the right thing with the surgery (don't all parents question their decisions?), but now I know we did the right thing!
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