WilcoxZone

We should have known that Grayson was going to be medically high-maintenance when we nervously watched him be carried off for surgery at just 2 months of age for Pyloric Stenosis. Around his first birthday, he had to have tear duct surgery. At age two, he needed tubes for his ears since he was already having a ton of ear infections. With a nice four and half year hiatus from surgery, we had him back in, this time for a fresh set of tubes in his ears and to have his adenoids taken out (along with a tire rotation and having the brakes checked). This past year, Grayson’s had real trouble with ear infections and worse, it’s lead to what seems to be temporary (let’s hope) partial hearing loss.

Since I’d had the same exact surgery at the same age, I was figuring this was no sweat. I don’t remember anything significant from it, other than getting a “for bravery” button from the ENT at a follow up visit. We also recalled Grayson’s tubes surgery at age two. That had been startlingly fast. We’d left him awake with the nurses, headed back to the waiting room, prayed for a minute and suddenly the doctor was there. It was so fast, I thought he was there to let us know he was about to start. In fact, he’d already finished. But in that case, I guess they’d just used a brief twilight sleep. This time, we knew was more intrusive since it actually involved more than just sticking tubes in his ears. This was also our first time to have to battle his diabetes as well.

The first affect of the diabetes had was the anesthesiologist (upon hearing of Grayson’s type 1) changed the venue from the outpatient clinic to the hospital in case there were any issues. I’d heard from other folks with diabetes that some doctors wouldn’t operate if the patient’s Bg was too high so the night before, I checked his sugar every 2 hours trying to carefully get it down to the right number. The trick was we couldn’t crash him because he wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight. That’s sort of like saying, “you need to make a perfect landing… and oh, did I mention that you have to do it with the engines off?” Of course, here, I am referring to Scott Hanselman’s Airplane Analogy. Essentially, I had to try to get a 100′s number going into a surgery that probably wouldn’t happen until at least 8:30AM the next morning. So that would be approximately 12 hours without food (more if you count when he’d finally get to eat). That night, whether it was nerves or just crappy estimating of carbs on my part, he was running high (in the 200′s).

As always, it’s better to be lucky than good (or perhaps some divine intervention) we checked him just before they wheeled him into pre-op and it was 110. The anesthesiologist, wanting to play it safe, asked us if we could just take Grayson’s pump off during the surgery and we’d let him run a little higher. They checked him in post op and he was at a very predictable 166. Nice!

I should have known it had been all too easy. Because he was put fully under, they had inserted a breathing tube which made his throat extremely sore. Then, like most folks coming out of anesthesia, he was sick to his stomach. Unfortunately, he was never able to throw up (which certainly would have helped him feel better). Instead, he agonized for hours both at the hospital and at home with an upset stomach. In fact, at several times that afternoon, I was certain we’d be back at the hospital because it didn’t seem like he was getting better. At around 2:30 that afternoon, he fell asleep, exhausted from it all. When he got up, 3 hours later he was almost 100%. It was amazing! And that night, he ate a bowl of noodles and was nearly himself again. Since then, no issues… unless you want to count the torturous screaming when we attempt to use the ear drops that we’re supposed to be giving him.

As a parting gift, they gave us a piece of the heart monitor tape. The nurse informed him that some moms like to use stuff like that in their child’s baby book. “Oh look, it’s his heartbeat from his second set of ear tubes!” Yeah, right, but it does have a certain amount of blogibility.

This entry was posted Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.