Sat, 15 Aug 2009

Tonsillectomy Reaction

It has been a bit of a blur for me: We took Robert to the surgery center Wednesday morning and brought him home after lunch. We got some medicine into him that afternoon and he had a good nap.

He was really upset after his nap to realize he missed breakfast and lunch. He was also really confused about waking up the same day. But we managed to get more medicine into him and and some food and liquids as well.

We woke him up twice (every four hours, like the RX said) during the night for pain killers and he mostly took them OK. The next day Sarah said he was mostly lying around the house and relaxing; generally doing OK. Medicine that night, Thursday, was a little harder to coax down and I don’t think we managed a full dose at 3:30am. By 7:30am Friday it was clear we were not able to coax in a full dose — really barely anything. And Sarah said he had some bloody vomit that probably brought up whatever medication was in his stomach.

Sarah talked with the surgery center folks, they prescribed a different pain killer and I came home to keep an eye on an uncomfortably sleeping Robert while Sarah went to the drug store. Unfortunately, things were pretty confused there.

By the time Sarah came back, without any new meds because of the confusion over what had already been prescribed, I had woken Robert up twice to try to get him to drink a sip of anything. We were talking with the pediatrician’s office about secrets to getting a 5 year old to take medicine he doesn’t like (there aren’t any) and what to look for when dehydration sets in (listlessness and 8 - 10 hours without urination). I was convinced we’d be heading the ER by midnight for IV fluids and pain meds.

The pediatrician’s office mentioned Tylenol suppositories as something which might work better since he didn’t need to swallow them. And I called to the pharmacy to see what all the confusion was. The pharmacist said the new meds had just been called in and she strongly recommended we go ahead and the get anti-nausea RX filled, even though it was optional.

Sarah headed off again and I started to contemplate the ER at midnight on a Friday. However, after the anti-nausea and Tylenol were “on-board,” Robert literally bounced back. He was out of bed, hopping around a bit and now is OK with taking the new pain meds, drinking a reasonable amount and eating enough to keep something in his stomach to pad the medications.

So we avoided the ER (so far) and he seems to be doing much better today. I’ve heard 3 days or so for recovery is not unheard of, but I’ve also heard days 7- 10 are normally the hardest. I’m really hoping Robert falls into the former camp.

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