Put 'Em In and Take 'Em Out

We have a baby that's always snored, practically since day 1. He's always drooled, even when there are no teeth poking through. He's always sounded congested to the point that people (my mom) are frequently asking, "does Santi have a cold?" We basically have our very own Benjamin Button...except much cuter. 

Not happy about his anklets:

In the past 6 weeks he's had 4 ear infections. I think we were at the point the antibiotics were saying, "FU I'm done working overtime" and we saw a specialist (ENT) to find out what to do about it. 

"Tubes in. Tonsils & adenoids out. He is not a borderline case." So here we are puttin' 'em in & takin' 'em out. 

Dear Lord-thank you for giving me such a decisive, straight forward surgeon. There is nothing worse than having to decide whether to put your baby through the misery of surgery if it's not absolutely, 100% medically necessary. We had that experience with the last ENT. "Weeeeeellll, we could do tubes but it would be more for convenience."  Convenience? I'm not looking for someone to pick up my dry cleaning. No thank you. 

No one ever mentioned the huge TandA before we saw a speech therapist. (Btw that TandA stands for tonsils and adenoids-recover your mind from the gutter it's fallen into.). She was the one who discovered them  and suggested we look into it further with a specialist. 

Superman traded in his cape for a gown:

We saw the surgeon for a consult on Friday and were out of surgery the next Thursday morning. The surgeon was wonderful. She was thorough, warm & very direct when it came to her care/recovery expectations. 

She reminded me of a woman I worked with at the GC in Pittsburgh. We all called her KZ. She was warm, but thorough. She was nice but would let you know if served your soup from the left instead of the right. It was comforting to draw that comparison. 

The thing that made me feel most at peace after knowing Santi did well, was coming back to recovery seeing a nurse rocking & cuddling my baby just as I would have. She was holding him tight with her head resting against his. There is nothing more comforting as a Mama than to know that someone is treating him just as you would when you're not there. 

Thank you rocking nurse, Dr. Schott & Children's Hospital for taking such good care of my baby before I got to be with him. 

...And for the choo-choos. There may have been major meltdowns instead of minor ones this morning if we hadn't had the brand new choo-choos to play with!

He only asked for milk 60-70 times WITH the choo-choos:

So far so good. Look for the next post on being cooped up in the house for a week with a rambunctious recovering toddler! It  could get interesting. 

The best advice I've received so far is from my friend Shelley, who's son went through the same thing at the same age:

"You'll need lots of fluids for recovery. Water for him. Wine for you." Cheers to that!