Well, it has been a week since J’s surgery. It went well thank God. We arrived at the hospital at 6.30 am. J went in about an hour or so later. They gave her something to make her sleepy and wouldn’t let us go with her to the operating room which was a shame but she was ok and very drowsy.

The whole thing (tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy) took about half an hour, then another half hour till we could see her. She was groggy for a couple of hours and slept till past noon. We were home around 1 pm.

She was doing great! the Dr. gave us Tylenol with Codeine in it to give her every 4 hours the first 24 hours. She was a bit out of it but was coping surprisingly well with all those drugs and was very lucid. She asked for coffee ice cream (which we gave her) and yoghurt lolly ice (a little strange but she seemed to like it). So I slept that night happy and calm and thinking this is gonna be a piece of cake.

6 am and J has a fever that stays between 38.7 and 39 degrees. Not so good. She was lethargic and out of it. That morning we stopped giving her the Tylenol with Codeine and just used regular pain killers. The poor baby was so out of it all day and the fever just wouldn’t come down. She was laying in the couch and her voice was barely legible and very coarse (a little exorcistish) and she would call me from across the room “mamaaaaah….. mamaaaaaaah” and I would run over only to have her say to me “Iiiiiii’m bigger than youuuuuu” this happened about 5 times with variations like “I’m bigger than the whole room” and “I’m bigger than everyone” hummmm.  She later sat up and said “I am allergic to feathers” which she isn’t. And she also told me ” This water is yummy! It tastes like coocoocola”.

By 5 pm her temp was not coming down so the Dr said to give her ibuprofen. about 5 minutes after the dose she said “My face feels nice” to which my husband said “her face is going numb or swelling” to which I said “Nonsense, there is nothing wrong with her”. 5 minutes later her face is swollen and she is itching all over her body. So, now we know she is allergic to Ibuprofen! better now than later I guess. After a dose of antihistamine we went back to using plain old tempra. Thankfully her fever broke that evening.

The next few days she was so lethargic and hardly moving, hardly eating and hardly talking. When she did talk her voice was really high-pitched. It was (and still is) sooooo strange! it’s like she inhaled helium! The Dr. said to expect this but I didn’t expect it to be so drastically higher! S’s face when he heard her voice was priceless. “MAMA! her voice!?!?”. He was on top form with his comments this week . From looking at her while shaking his head and saying to me solemnly “It was a bad idea to take her tonsils out mama”. To constantly asking “how did they take them out? did they cut them? with a knife? OH! a laser? did it bleed?” etc etc. Baby B was stuck to me like glue! Who knew a 10 month old could get jealous!

J is better now, but I think the combination of anesthesia, codeine and her surprise at how much pain she was in just got her into a slump of sorts. She refused to eat, only wanted to sleep and wouldn’t speak at all. She lost 2 kg (and she’s only little anyway) but just as I was about to freak out and take her to the emergency room for fluid IV she started getting better.

The true gem of this week was when J announced “I want the Dr. to put my tonsils back” :(