tonsillectomy - day six and seven

Days six and seven were pretty good. I'm combining these days because there isn't a whole lot that has changed. Shon and I were just talking tonight about how proud we are of her. She has been such a trooper and has handled this ten times better than we ever imagined. She's a bit of a drama queen if you know what I'm saying. I would never doubt that she was in pain, but I just thought her way of expressing it would be something out of Hollywood. 

Bless her heart. 

The mornings and nights have been a little rough. Her throat starts to burn. I hate saying this word almost as much as I hate the word moist, squirt, crevasse, but the scabs are starting to fall off. Her medicine is starting to burn. We are currently just doing the ibuprofen (over the counter) when needed. 

On day six, Tristan went with my mom for the day and it was back to being Tay and I. It was beautiful out, 65 degrees, yes those temps excite us around these parts. So I decided for lunch to have a picnic and take her on a nature walk at our local state park. It was perfect. A little windy, but she really enjoyed getting up and out of the house and fresh air. She isn't allowed to run around or play and get her heart rate up and going for about two weeks after surgery, so this was the next best thing.

She ate:

pizza

ice cream

popsicle

ramen noodless

penne

bagel thin with cream cheese

popcorn (i was shocked she was ok with this)

pancakes

pepperoni slices

I don't know what I'm going to do when we clean up our little campsite downstairs in the living room. I've been sleeping down here with her since the night of her surgery and Tristan has joined us. I knew it was going to be rough with the medicine and wanted to be right by her for whatever she needed. That way she didn't have to get up, come in our bedroom and wake both of us up. Shon gets up early for work and drives all day, I work from home. It just made sense and I'm one hundred and ten percent fine with that! 

Anyways, don't get me wrong, we are very close, but this past week our bond has gotten so much stronger. We have had the best time together. I know she is hurting and is too exhausted to unleash her sassy attitude out to play. I know it won't stay peachy keen like this, but really no ones kids are perfect. I'm soaking up every bit I can though. Seeing your baby go through anything like this really makes you think, what if something happened? Thankfully, all of it has been smooth sailing. Everything has gone better than we imagined it would. On that note, I will end our tonsillectomy journey via blog. If anything changes, I will definitely mention it. I can't believe it's already been a week. She still has recovery, but the worst is over with. <knock on wood> YAY!

My final thoughts:
Have patience. It gets hard when you can get them to stop cry, when they wake up in the middle of the night in pain. We got lucky with this and it was minimal.
Cuddle and love a lot. They need it. You will need it.
Have easy meals prepped and ready to go. Something I failed to do and didn't know I'd be completely exhausted. Glad Shon was so understanding with this.
Stay on top of the meds, even throughout  the night. For about the first 4-5 nights, I made sure to wake her up for medicine every two hours. There is where the too exhausted to cook came from.
Adding to that, keep hydrated, throughout the night by drinking and a humidifier. I would make sure to have her drink some water and before I knew it, she was back to sleep. I felt like I had a newborn again, except my kids were a rare breed and slept phenomenal as babies. We also keep a humidifier running for her at night. I will say again, COOL MIST not WARM MIST!
Laxative. Yep. Have one on hand. They will get backed up from the medicine. We use this one.
Encourage chewing. Even if it's just gum. The jaw will become sore from the lack of. Even the things they will chew, will most likely be small bites and isn't really getting the jaw going.
Stock up on non physical activities. Luckily we have a lot of fun things to do inside. Coloring books, reading books, tablets, video games, painting, play-doh, board games... you get the point.
Go for walks. When the child is feeling up to it of course. We went once around our neighborhood, but I wanted to avoid that so she wouldn't get sad seeing all her friends playing together outside. Go to a park or somewhere peaceful if you can.
Reassure them everything will be okay. Every time it started to bother her, I told her it won't be like this for long, in my best Darius Rucker voice.
Let them try to eat what they want to eat. As long as it's not on the list to avoid. Her doctor said she can pretty much go at her down pace with whatever she wants to eat, but to stay away from things like hot sauce, citrus, anything acidic and carbonation (as it dehydrates) The whole ice cream and popsicle thing got old to her literally after the first day. She will still have it as a snack, but sister wants food.
Make them feel special and enjoy this down time at home with them! Like I said, our bond has grown. It's been great being home with her every day. Sleeping with her every night. Make the best out of it!

I hope this blog comes in handy for you, maybe one day. I know all the blogs I stumbled upon were so helpful that I went back and read them over and over. Shon even read them. While the medical/professional standpoint is important for obvious reasons, it's great hearing it straight from the mother herself.
Why?
Because Mom knows best!