Post-Post Surgery

On Friday last week, when all the pain meds from his surgery wore off, Lukas absolutely refused to eat or drink anything. He even refused to swallow his own saliva. After 24 hours of trying everything to get something in his mouth and watching him become more and more lethargic, I called the doctor to tell him the situation. He told us to take Lukas to the hospital for a liquid IV and they'd watch him for 24 hours. So, we ended up taking Lukas to the hospital because of dehydration. Well, 24 hours went by and there was no change, except Lukas looked a lot better from having liquid in him. He was still very tired and what energy he did have wore off quickly, but he didn't look like he did when we brought him in. He still refused anything offered him. Finally, after a very long 48 hours or so of the IV and forced pain meds, Lukas decided to start drinking. After that, he didn't stop. He ate and drank just about everything the nurses gave him like there was no tomorrow, and kept asking for more. Finally, he was allowed to come home and now he's back to his normal self again.

Lukas had his week post-op appointment today and all is well. I learned a few more things at this appointment that I thought were interesting. Turns out that Lukas' adenoids were so big that his airway was only about 15-20% open. His tonsils were also so big that they hung down the back of his throat, causing him to not pronounce certain sounds very well.

Since he's had all this work done, we've noticed some acute changes in Lukas. First off, his speech has noticeably improved just in the past few days and he's making sounds he never did before. This is in part to being able to hear himself better, and being able to make his mouth do what he wants it to do. His voice is also higher, which the doctor said is normal. It will return to his normal voice when everything is healed. The other most relieving thing for me is that he can breathe when he sleeps. I sometimes walk into his room just to hear the silence and watch him be so peaceful. It's just a miracle to me.

The surgery and the recovery period were very stressful and tiring, and I would not wish that on anyone. I wondered quite a bit through it all if we should have done this when Lukas was so young and not able to be reasoned with. If he was a little older, we might have been able to skip the two day hospital stay. But now that it's all over with and we are back to normal life, I see the immense blessing it is in Lukas' life and therefore in the lives of our whole family. It's wonderful to see the improvement and feel like Lukas can now speak and learn and sleep the way he's supposed to.

I'm also grateful for the inspiration that led me to have him looked at more closely. My mother calls it the "mother instinct" and tells me all the time to never ignore that instinct. I think she's right.