Surgery #10

Katie had her tenth surgery this past Tuesday. She had her tonsils removed and also had some dental work done while she was sedated.

Her surgery was scheduled for 7:30 a.m. We had to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. for pre-op. Katie did really well while waiting, watching her DVD player the entire time. She was finally taken back to surgery around 7:45.

She was in the OR about 90 minutes. Dental went first and took some x-rays, cleaned her teeth, and extracted three baby teeth that hadn't fallen out yet, including her two front teeth. The dentist showed us on the x-rays that Katie is missing her four permanent upper front teeth due to her cleft palate. She will likely need a bridge or implants in a few years, once her mouth has stopped growing.

The ENT then removed her tonsils. He had planned to remove her adenoids as well, but once he got a look at them, he said they were really small and weren't causing any harm, so he left them in. Her tonsils, however, were huge! Hopefully, removing them will lessen the frequent sinus infections and tonsil infections that she gets every spring and fall.

Katie was in recovery a couple of hours. She was pretty knocked out from the anesthesia and slept for quite a while, so the nurse just let her sleep it off. Once she finally woke up, Arlin was able to get a dose of Tylenol in her before we left the hospital.

Katie was pretty lethargic most of Tuesday and napped a couple of times. She wasn't wanting to drink much, but she did take a little liquid by medicine dropper and ate a little soft food in the evening. By Wednesday, though, you would never even know she had surgery! She has shown no signs of pain at all, not ever crying or even whimpering. She started eating more soft foods on Wednesday--pears, soft breakfast bars, chicken salad sandwich, watermelon, green beans--and has done fine with all of them. She was still hesitant to drink from her cup on Wednesday, but started using it a little yesterday and is back to drinking pretty normally today.

We can't believe how well her recovery has gone. She is such a trooper!