Saturday, February 23, 2008

Payton Update

{Payton resting in the recovery room}

Payton did well in surgery, although it took a little longer than I expected and I was pretty restless out in the waiting room. After about an hour and 20 minutes, they brought us back to the PACU where Payton was recovering. She was pretty out of it, but was not fussy like they expected her to be. All the nurses kept saying she was their best surgical patient ever.

Payton's surgeon was Dr. Mantle ... we did not meet her until right before surgery and she was fabulous. She had an awesome bedside manner and I felt very comfortable with her. After surgery, she said Payton's tonsils were not overly large, but that she had a lot of adenoid tissue. We are really hoping the removal of that adenoid tissue will help with Payton's constant congestion. Dr. Mantle also told us that Payton's palate is not completely fused, or something like that. The information she gave us was very confusing, but this is the best that I understand it. Essentially the two sides of the palate are supposed to fuse (I think around one year of age), but Payton's did not fuse all the way together. Therefore, I think her palate does not go back as far as it should ... or something. So Dr. Mantle left a little bit of the adenoid tissue in there to prevent an open space ... or something. Apparently taking all the tissue out would most likely cause her to have nasal speech, but leaving this little bit of tissue in there should prevent that ... hopefully. This makes me a little nervous, but there is nothing we can do now. I will be asking more about this palate thing when we follow up with the ENT. Payton's ears were also checked during surgery, but both tubes were in place so nothing has changed there.

After being in recovery for an hour or two, they moved us up to the Pediatric Indermediate Care Unit. Payton was initially pretty uncomfortable, but she was a total trooper. None of the nurses in the PICU could believe she had just had a T&A because she was not screaming like the kids usually do. We gave her 3mL of tylenol with codeine every 4-6 hours through the night. She slept way better than I expected, only waking up when she had to take her meds.

This morning she was in great spirits. She drank several ounces of formula and even ate a ton of cheerios. She was walking the PICU floor greeting everyone and was just happy as could be. I was started to question whether or not they really did surgery! We had her only on regular tylenol throughout the day since she seemed to be doing okay. Our pharmacist warned us not to use the codeine if we don't need to because it isn't good for underdeveloped kidneys in little kids. Yikes. Tonight Payton was drooling a lot and seemed to be having pain, so we gave her some codeine before bed to help her sleep. Hopefully we can resume just regular tylenol in the morning.

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