Adenoid & Tonsillectomy

Well, today was the big day. Our arrival time this morning was scheduled for 9am. We ended up staying in a hotel last night in Sioux City so we wouldn't have to drive as far in the morning. Lucky for us we did, because it was snowing pretty bad when we got up, and it would have made for a really long drive! Heidi made the most of her time at the hotel by playing with her new Littlest Pet Shop toy that Grammy got her to play with during her recovery.

She got pretty excited this morning when she looked out the window of the hotel and saw all the snow, so she sat on the heating unit and window seal and watched it come down for a good 10 minutes or so.


Once we went back into the room, Heidi started asking lots of questions about what was going to happen. Everything went very fast though so she didn't really have too much time to think about it. She got some medicine to help her relax, and they wheeled her off in her bed. She took her cabbage patch doll ("Ballerina") with her so she could get her tonsills out too :-) It was pretty cute. A teddy bear that the doctor gave her also made the trip. This is just before they took her back...

About 15 minutes later the doctor was finished and talked to us while Heidi was still in the recovery room. She said that her tonsills were very large and that her adenoids were almost completely full of "gunk" (that's not the medical term, but I can't remember exactly what she said). Apparently, they had a bit of trouble getting the bleeding from her nose to cease, so she was in the recovery area a little longer than expected, but once she was back with us in her room, she was VERY tired. She slept all the anesthesia off, so she wasn't cranky or irritable at all. I was thrilled because every other little kid in there seemed to be the exact opposite!


Almost 2 hours later, she woke up and was ready for that popsicle that had been promised. She ate the entire thing and was incredibly willing to drink fluids.

So, after the IV had finished, they took it out and we were ready to head home. However, while we were waiting for that IV and while she was eating her popsicle, she was watching cartoons and making sure Daddy stayed out of her way so she could see :-)

And then she started to get bored while we had to keep waiting...

We stopped at McDonalds before picking up her medicine so she could get a chocolate shake, which she loved! It's sort of a tradition... Mommy did the same thing when she got her tonsills out.
All in all, she has come through like a trooper. Now that we are home, I can see some of the pain in her eyes, and especially when she coughs, she gets pretty worked up from it. I'm sure she'll have a pretty quick recovery though!