30-ish Years Later

Ever since J was born she has been a snotty, sinusey kinda kiddo.  She's the first one to have her nose start running whenever the weather gets a bit changeable and once it starts running it can be hard to stop.

She's always been quite a 'heavy breather' at night but about 6-9 months ago she started snoring...and I don't mean a little bit of snoring...I mean snoring like you might imagine a big hairy biker would snore.

Watching her sleeping at night, one of my favourite quiet things to do from time to time, it became evident that she was probably having apnoeas.  There is a history of it in Steven's family.  It happens to him as well, it's not uncommon for me to poke him when I reading when it has taken him to long to breath.  He needs to get that sorted out.

Anyway, prompted by the trucker like snoring I got a referral to an Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) specialist with a suspicion that our little princess needed her adenoids removed to stop her snoring like anything but.

Knowing we were there about her snoring our ENT took one look at her (no open up and say ahh), asked 2 questions...is she a snotty kid? and does she have apnoeas?  Told me her tonsils were enormous so lets take care of them and her adenoids at the earliest convenience.

Turns out that our GP hadn't referred us to just any ENT, he'd referred us to a leader in the field.  He talked about some new method he uses and apologised that J would have to overnight due to her weight because if she weighed 15kg it would only be day surgery.

Day surgery?  Hello, when did a tonsillectomy become day surgery?

Nearly 30 years ago I had my tonsils removed.  That was me on my 'tonsil day'.  When I had my tonsils removed when I was 5, as for Steven when he wa 8, having your tonsils removed meant really having them removed. 

It meant at least 5 nights in hospital and a diet of jelly, ice cream and other soft foods until you had to eat that dry toast before you were allowed to go home.

Apparently in 2012 having your tonsils taken care of doesn't necessarily mean having them removed as such.

Today Jasmine's tonsillectomy was performed using radiofrequency Coblation.  Yep, I'd never heard of it before either.

Most of all what it means is that there has been no cutting and no blood.  She went into surgery around 8am, it's quite freaky holding your child in your arms while the anaesthetist knocks them out...and by 10.30am she was sitting up in bed scoffing vegemite toast.  I kid you not.

Every single person who saw her in that blue hat commented on how cute or adorable she was and most of them also mentioned her big blue eyes.  Little charmer.

We are spending the night in hospital tonight because J is a little lightweight at only 13.5kg and protocol says that she needs to be monitored overnight.  It's kind of funny because she has been an absolute trooper throughout the day...she complained she wanted to go home, wants to get rid of the 'thing' in/on her arm, ate lots and snuggled on the bed with me.

I had the pleasure of spending pretty much the entire day with my baby girl and that included her stroking my face as I lay with her while she fell asleep tonight.

It's only the second time one of the kids have been admitted to hospital and for that I feel very lucky.  The other time it was for Charlotte to have dental surgery.

I think it's fair to say I am truly amazed by how much the stock standard tonsillectomy has changed...the method, the management and recovery times.  Sure, our ENT is using a new method, it's not how most doctors do it but irrespective of that it is still only day surgery.

Does modern medicine amaze you as much as it does me?

Wish me a half decent night sleep...our room is surrounded my babies and I know I'll wake up to them crying...but I certainly feel for their mums more than I do myself because it's just been tonsils and adenoids for us.

Tatum xx

PS  I've been told that the comments on here can be a bit user unfriendly, if you have tried to comment but typepad hasn't let you could you do me a favour and let me know on facebook or by sending me an email...I've long suspected that the commenting was painful and want to fix it if it's broken :)