Tonsils and Adenoids

Adam's tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy were today, the longest day in the history of the universe.

I dropped off the babies at daycare and rushed to the hospital, because I was running behind due to babies not understanding "the plan," just in time to see Adam after they gave him the "goofy juice."

Goofy Juice apparently acts like an anti anxiety and makes kids a little loopy. They said it would probably give us a laugh. It calmed Adam way down, but I have to be honest, he was no more goofy then than he is in every day life. It was normal Adam, except in slow motion, which made it pretty entertaining because the comedic timing was spot-on.

He played with my watch, pointed out the Nemos on the ceiling, and called everyone, except me, "daddy" -- including our female nurse who had a short, spiky hair cut. Several times he slyly confessed that he had Claire's paci in his mouth, with a half guilty, half mischievous look... and he only thinks that because we bought Colin and Claire new pacifiers, and Colin rejected his, opting for his thumb. So Claire has green, white, pink, purple pacis, and all blue pacifiers belong to Adam. He was pointing out that this pacifier was new and not originally "his."

He laid on the bed and insisted I stand up beside him, not sit (this is my always on duty personal trainer), and whenever someone new walked in, like a gentleman he wobbled his way to a sitting position to tell them "hi" (or "hi Daddy"). With every noise he heard, he put his hand to his ear and said, "Oh! I hear it! I hear the sleep!"

"Are you sleepy, Adam?"
"Yeah. Bye!"
(He hates sleeping while people are with him, so he was telling us to go away. He likes to be in his bed, on his own. He has since he was 3 weeks old.)

He never did fall asleep there, but as the drugs wore in he got more bold with his conversations. A nurse walked by in green scrubs and a cool green hat, and he yelled, "NO! Wait! That's Adam's hat! COME BACK!"

And then he met the doctor, who told Adam he'd see him in a little bit. I said, "Say, see ya later!"

Adam looked at him, grinned, pulled his foot out from beneath the blanket and showed the doctor the little blinking red sticker on his foot that monitored his oxygen. Held it there for good measure for him to see . . . and sang, "TA DA!"

When they took him back they tried to shoo me away so he wouldn't be upset that we were going one direction and he was going the other, but I couldn't take my eyes off him until they were out of sight, and he felt the same, sitting up in the little wheely bed, looking back at us. He looked so tiny and so sweet.

The surgery went quickly - Shannon and I had a romantic breakfast date in the hospital cafeteria (emphasize the sarcasm there), and before I knew it there was a little band-aid next to Adam's name on the surgery monitor.

The blasted IV.

Recovery.

THE blankie.

After the surgery, the doctor briefed us on how well it went. We went back to cuddle with him after he woke up and heard a lot of "ows," crying, and "mommas." They couldn't find beds available to move him to a room. Shannon stayed for about and hour but then had to leave to get Colin and Claire from daycare to drop them off at my mom's house.

Adam was supposed to be in recovery for maybe 20 minutes. We were there for 2 and a half hours. During this time, they struggled to get his pain under control. He doesn't tolerate narcotics well, but what they were giving him wasn't strong enough or wasn't working (been there). The holding room started getting back up with more kids/babies who were just released from routine surgeries and they were crying, their monitors were beeping, and an evil-sounding tasmanian devil child was put in the bed next to ours, screaming almost obscenely at his parents the second his eyes opened. They chuckled as if this was "just him." I felt bad for them.

Adam cried in pain for nearly 2 hours. He pulled off his leads. He beat on his IV, he tried to kick off the oxygen monitor on his toe. We tried watching Wall-E. We tried to read Curious George. That worked for about 5 minutes.

He insisted we go for a "walk" in his stroller, and the very nice male nurse walked with us, around in circles while he held Adam's IV bag. We saw a brief smile when we go to a window.

"Oh, outside!!"

And just for your information, at the risk of revealing more than you'd like to know... I discovered today that even if you are just barely lactating for your 4 month old babies, and your 29 month old cries for 30 minutes, you'll probably need a new shirt because your body can't tell the difference. And you'll need to fashionably throw a white hospital blanket over your shoulders like a shawl and pretend like it's just the statement you'd like to make.

As we packed up to go to our room when they finally had it ready, someone mentioned to a nurse in passing that I also had 4 month old twins. She looked at me in disbelief . . . and hugged me. I took it.

We finally got to our room, where Adam screamed in pain and in frustration and annoyance for another hour until I whispered in his ear for a good ten minutes and rubbed his back to get him to fall asleep.

Well, let me rephrase that - he DID stop screaming momentarily because he got to touch the IV machine, and no one told him no. That pause was cause mostly by utter surprise... you could tell he was sure someone would tell him no.

Even then, he only slept an hour and then watched Tom and Jerry with Shannon while I took a break to go see the babies.

I took a deep breath when I got in the car, and then dug for change so I could pay for the parking lot fees in cash. Adam likes to play in the car and play with the tray of coins, sticking whatever will fit in whatever cranny of the dashboard he can find. I pulled quarters out of the steering column, from underneath the floorboard, and tried to dig them out of air conditioning vents. And then I saw this, and despite the rough day, I laughed because I love my kid just that much.

Let's hope I figure out how to dislodge the pennies before it gets cold and I need to use the heater.

Many other things happened during the day, but mostly Adam just wanted to go home or play "cars" and drive the playschool car up and down the hallways past the nurses' station and flirt with the group of nurses standing there. When the doctor came to check on him and make his rounds at about 5:45 pm, Adam was having another meltdown because we were trying to get him to rest. Although the original plan was to keep him in the hospital overnight, we all agreed that he was doing okay physically, and mentally he'd probably be better off in his own bed tonight so he can get the rest to heal. He'd been observed for almost 10 hours and was showing no signs of infection or bad reactions, only hatred of the hospital, the leads, the IV, and not being in his own bed. The pain was there, but it was being managed. It was doing him no good to be screaming at the top of his lungs in frustration. So, thankfully, and with a new appreciation for this doctor that I no longer consider a "jerk," (he has redeemed himself the last few times I've met with him), we got the hell out of there.

Adam is now sleeping in his own bed peacefully, and hopefully will be feeling much better in the morning. We'll be keeping a close eye on him tonight, but at least he'll get some rest.