Surgeries

Today Sean, Natalia, & Alauna went under the knife. They all had tubes put in their ears. Natalia had her turbinates in her nose cleaned out as well. Alauna was supposed to get her adenoids out, but that didn't happen - I'll explain later on.


Don't these kids look so cute all lined up in their hospital gowns?!

Sean got to go first because he didn't need an albuterol treatment for asthma like the girls did. Lucky kid! The surgeries are usually scheduled so that the youngest kids go first. However, they do make allowances for siblings. So not only did Sean get to go earlier in the day because of his younger sisters, but he also got to leapfrog over them and be first! Like I said - lucky kid! And he is so mature and big. Look at him go off with the nurse without concern.


(He has his socks on upside down! The grippy side goes down not up, Sean!)




With Sean gone, Natalia and Alauna were left by themselves. I'm not sure if Natalia is comforting a crying Alauna or mauling her. Probably both. I think it is so sweet that Natalia tries so hard to help her sister, even when she is so sad too. Cute girls!

Once the albuterol treatments were all done it was time for Alauna to go back and get ready for her surgery. In order to keep the clinginess to a minimum we decided that it would be best if Robert took her back instead of me. I'm not sure that it really helped too much, since she is such a daddy's girl. At least she left me with a wave and a smile!

With Sean in surgery and Alauna getting prepped; Robert and I were left with Natalia. For only a few seconds. Then I was called to go and be with Sean as he came out of the anesthesia. He is such a calm boy. No fussing, crying, etc. My boys really spoiled me for surgery recovery. They were so calm and quick to recover. The girls are an entirely different story!

Here I'm leaving Robert and Natalia to go to Sean.



A little while later it was Natalia's turn to go and get prepped. Look at this Big Girl going off with the nurse as happy as can be. She is so brave and strong!

Remember, I said that I would talk more about the results later. Well, let's start with Sean.

Sean had nasty, thick, ooey, gooey, goop behind his left eardrum. This caused about a 40 dB hearing loss on that side. No wonder the kid was so grumpy! This is the second time that his left ear has had this problem. Last time he got tubes it was the same thing. (This is his 4 1/2 set of tubes - the 1/2 comes because last time he had a lot of congestion right after the surgery and the resulting drainage pushed out one of the tubes and it had to be replaced)

Natalia had her turbinates cleaned out. When the doctor went in he found that the tiny bones that the turbinates sit on were a bit deformed. Instead of staying neatly under the turbinate tissue the bone extend towards the middle of the nose - on each side. So he had to carefully carve away some of the bone as well as clean out the infected tissue inside the turbinate. Trauma!! Especially for a little girl like Natalia who is so very fragile about hospital stuff. She was the last to come out of the surgery and she was seriously the most distressed. Poor girl.

Alauna was scheduled to have her adenoids out in hopes that it would take some of the bacterial pressure off her tonsils. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist was concerned by the amount of gunk coming from her lungs when she was intubated. I gather that for the tubes you don't have to be intubated (Sean just had a tube in his mouth to prevent him choking on his tongue) but for more invasive surgery like adenoids you have to be more medicated. Which depresses your respiration. Which is bad if you have gunk in your lungs. Which means that you probably have bronchitis. Which means that you probably will get get pneumonia if the doctor goes ahead with the surgery. Which means that Alauna didn't get her adenoids out. Which means that she still is choking on her tonsils. Which means she wakes up numerous times a night coughing and gagging.

Ahh! the joys of surgeries! At least the kids won't get ear infections again for a year or so. Now it's time to recover from all this fun!