Elijah's Tonsilectomy

I tried to take a picture of Elijah's tonsils last night before they were no more, and it was a lot trickier than I expected. This is the best shot I got. If you know what tonsils look like, you'll be able to spot them easily. Otherwise, they are the pink, fleshy things at the back of his mouth.

We were scheduled to arrive at the surgery center at 6am, so I woke Elijah up about 20 minutes before that time. I just put on his shoes and coat on with his pajamas and went. Lo and behold it had SNOWED! The temp must have been above freezing because the streets were wet, but there was snow on the grass. We live about a mile from the surgery center, so we got there quite quickly. I got him checked in and we waited in the pre-op area for a while. He had to change into a hospital gown that had tigers on it. It was so big on him it practically dragged on the ground. We had to wait a bit for all the doctors to arrive since Elijah was one of the first surgeries of the day. He charmed all the nurses with his good behavior and obvious smarts. He was given a coloring book and we worked on a word search together (he loves those!). Once again the nurses were impressed :) Around 7:10 the ENT arrived and Elijah was taken back to the O.R. After about 10 minutes of waiting, a nurse came out and told me how well he had done with the anesthesia. They had him put the mask on his stuffed puppy first, then he held it on his own face and went to sleep. The surgery only lasted about 20 minutes, and then I met with the doctor. He said the surgery went really well and that Elijah's tonsils were only attached with a very narrow band of tissue. Because of that, he'll have an easier recovery, smaller scabs, and less scar tissue. His adenoids were of moderate size (unlike his LARGE tonsils), and they came out easily too. After Elijah was in recovery for about 5 minutes, he woke up just enough to say "I want my Mommy!", so they came and got me even though he was still pretty out of it. I held him, he drank a little apple juice, and he fell asleep. After 90 minutes of sleeping, the nurse came in and said he needed to eat something and take some pain medicine before he could leave. I whispered, "Elijah, do you want some pudding?" His eyes opened and he was suddenly AWAKE. He ate 1/2 a cup of pudding, drank a lot more juice, and eventually gagged down the yucky, liquid medicine. When it became apparent that he was going to tolerate the medicine (15 min or so), the nurse took out his IV and he got dressed. At that point, he said, "that was really fun!" He walked to the car, and all the nurses said, "Bye Elijah!!" When we got outside I had to tell him NOT to run or jump... He's supposed to stay sedintary for a WEEK and no running, jumping, etc for TWO WEEKS. Right.

I was going to take a picture to show how chipper he looks, but he wanted to look pitiful for the camera :)