It's a done deal!

Jack's surgery (officially called "Tube ventilation placement, tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy") was yesterday morning. Austin talked me into moving it to the last week of school. It made for a very stressful week, but now that it's done, I'm really glad we did it. I was a nervous wreck the days leading up to it and I think I barely slept the night before. He checked in at 7:45am at the American Fork Hospital and I was very relieved to walk in and within minutes see two familiar faces. Mel Jorgensen and Cheryl Grace were there and even though neither were our nurses, it was still comforting to have them there!

As you can see, Jack is very unhappy to be here. Ha! He had been so excited about it. Obviously, he didn't know what was coming to him, but my smart husband had been talking up "the trip to the big doctors" for days and it paid off! Jack would talk about it constantly, so by the time it actually rolled around he was thrilled to be there! He quickly won over the nurses and staff...it made it that much easier to actually go through with it.



Jack picked up this baseball in Austin's car on the ride over. Who knew that would be his source of comfort? He held on to it the whole time before and after!

The socks they put on him were ridiculous. They're "one size fits all". Yeah right.


Jack's nurse was very sweet with him. She played catch with him for awhile to win his trust and affection and then she loaded him up with stickers. He used them all right away!

Jack showing us that the doctors are going to fix his mouth. Don't mind the dry patch around his mouth...we weren't allowed to use any lotions on him that morning. And, as for the scrapes on his eye and lip, well, Jack just wouldn't be Jack without some sort of injury. I think he was just trying to get more sympathy! :)

His nurse was willing to take our camera in and take some pictures. I'm so she did because otherwise....

we wouldn't have been able to have this nasty proof of how incredibly large his tonsils were (scroll fast if you're a wuss...I mean, if you have a weak stomach! :) ) It was all the nurse and the doctor could talk about to us when they were done. The doctor said they're about twice the size of the ones he usually removes!

Poor kid, huh? The doctor was excited for him because now "Jack will be able to sleep so much better". When we informed him that Jack is a great sleeper and always has been, he was in awe. He said, "I don't even know how he breathes when he sleeps!" If you look at the left side of both of them (the one on the left is facing the wrong way) you can see they have flat sides. That's from them pushing against each other when his mouth is in a relaxed state. I hadn't thought about it, but he explained that whenever we look at his tonsils, his mouth is wide open, which stretches the tonsils. So, when we could see them, they still looked huge and close together, but I never knew that when his mouth was closed that they would go even closer together!

After the surgery was over and before we had Jack back, the nurse came in and told us that everything went really well and smoothly. Those words are invaluable to a set of worried parents! I know that it's a common and simple procedure, but I couldn't help but let my mind explore the possible "what if's". When they wheeled him away, I gave him a kiss and thought, "that could be the last one for all I know." Lucky for us, it wasn't and everything went fine. She said she was very impressed with Jack's bravery. When they wheeled him back to the OR he remained happy and never once whined or cried. I was excited to know that he wasn't in a state of panic or hysterics. And then they brought Jack back to us. Oh my. They had warned us that he was going to be mad coming out of the anesthesia, but I was not prepared for how he really was. Jack is usually a mild mannered kid and is usually easy to distract or reason with. Well, apparently when he's not really coherent, any sort of reasoning or distractions are not going to work. He was screaming and flailing and trying to rip the IV out of his hand. They had to put a hose that blew out oxygen right in front of his face because he kept holding his breath. I could tell the IV was really hurting him and one time he actually got a pretty good hold of it. He kinked it which sent the monitors into a tizzy and she had to come try to save the line. If she couldn't fix it, she'd have to replace it, which we REALLY didn't want to do. So, I'm sitting in a chair holding him against me with all of my strength with one hand and the other hand is trying to keep the oxygen going toward him. Austin was trying to hold his hands away from each other while holding the arm with the IV in it still so the nurse could fix it. This portion of our day lasted WAY too long. He was hysterical and yelling, "I'm stuck, Mom!" Yes, he really was. He was still really out of it and in pain from the IV. It was one of the saddest experiences of my life. I was trying to stay calm and collected so that I could try to calm Jack down, but when I looked up and saw the tears streaming down Austin's cheeks, I couldn't hold back mine back any longer. Finally, the nurse fixed the line and was able to save it, another nurse got him a sippy cup of apple juice (which he surprisingly started drinking right away without even a flinch!) and after about 30 minutes we were able to get him completely calmed down. Once he was fully out of the anesthesia, he was totally fine! He kept dozing in and out of sleep and would squirm like he was uncomfortable. So, I laid him down in the hospital bed with his blanket, stuffed dog and baseball and turned on the TV and he was a happy camper!

These pictures were obviously taken after worst part of the ordeal was over.


They told us that once he drank all of his juice and was able to hold it down for 15 minutes that they could take his IV out. We knew that once that came out that we'd get our happy Jack back. He was so willing to drink, something I was not expecting at all! He had it gone in about 15-20 minutes and the IV was out shortly after that! Woo hoo!



This was his best attempt at a smile at this point! :)




Of course, we had to get an ice cream cone on the way home!

And, honestly, from this point up to the moment that I write this, you wouldn't even know that he had anything done. He hasn't whined, he hasn't complained or cried. He's as happy and energetic as can be and is eating and drinking like a champ!

It's so stinking cute to hear his little voice now! It's a little bit higher pitched and so much clearer! Granted, his pronunciation isn't drastically improved (yet...), but his voice is no longer muffled! I thought I would miss his old voice, but his new one is so cute that I'm ok with it! I love this little man so much! Thanks to everyone for their comforting and encouraging words and prayers! Knowing we had so much support made this experience so much more bearable! Love to you all!