Baby Girl is having surgery at the end of this month. Tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy and ear tubes inserted. Eleven days before her third birthday. This is going to be a big deal. She will have to stay in the hospital overnight and it will take approximately 7-10 days for her to recover, I’m told. Hell, I was 30 when I had my tonsils out and it took me 45 days to recover! It SUCKED. I’m grateful for the reduced recovery time for my 2/3 year old – my sanity would be severely tested if it took her 45 days. I would expect you all to work out who was going to bring me a bottle of wine each day.
This has all been a long time coming….
Baby Girl has had sleep issues since she was very small. We would go through periods of “good sleeping” and “bad sleeping” – the length of the “bad sleeping” far outdid the length of the “good sleeping.” I read books on sleep training, we had our nightly rituals, I did it all just right. To no avail really. She has woken up multiple times a night and either cried, gotten out of bed, refused to sleep, or, very rarely, gone back to sleep on her own almost every night for the past two years. In any case, I was awake every single time. We recognized that she had trouble breathing at night – I thought it was allergies. I switched her pillow out in case it was full of dust and/or mold. She snores. Loudly and persistently. She is often cranky during the day. She doesn’t like to sleep alone.
Her original pediatrician never said a word about her enlarged tonsils. But one day – maybe she was yawning – I noticed how big they are. They are so large they almost touch. At first I thought that tonsils maybe were things that started out large and you grew into them. But then she started getting sick a lot. LOTS of colds, sinus issues, drainage, ear infections and coughing. Lord, the coughing. She coughs anytime she is laying down. She coughs in the car seat, especially if she falls asleep, she coughs while she is eating, she will cough so much she gags herself. She will cough so much that she wakes herself up. And then she cries.
I had her at her new physician’s office one day because of a cold or something and she took one look in her mouth and said to me “has anyone ever told you her tonsils are huge?” And I said um no. They’re not normal? She kindly explained that no, the tonsils are not supposed to be so large that they interfere with her breathing. And her swallowing. And her daily life. You should take her to a Pediatric ENT she tells me. Lightbulbs are exploding all over my head.
So after the many weeks it took me to find a Pediatric ENT anywhere near here, we went 45 minutes down I-35 EAST (HOLY SHIT I HATE THAT ROAD) while Baby Girl fussed and fretted in the back seat. Once we get there, they have a great little play area. So great, that Baby Girl has no intention of leaving the play area after having spent nearly an hour in the car to go with some lady she has never seen before. I pick her up, while she is protesting loudly, and we go with the nurse. The doc seems nice. He has a great manner with the kids. Baby Girl starts laughing and having a good time. He says to me that her tonsils are exceedingly large – does she snore? Yes? I’m silently berating myself for how long it took me to figure out there is something really wrong. He looks in her ears – “I bet she has some hearing loss” he says. Wait, what?! No, Doc, she hears fine – I swear. Even though she failed her newborn hearing test three times – she can now hear me try to silently open a piece of chocolate from down the hallway. He says “remind me to do a hearing test after you have the sleep study done – I’m willing to bet she has hearing loss with this amount of fluid in her ears.” But her ears don’t hurt, I argue – she doesn’t complain. Well, he patiently explains, her ears are not currently infected, but they are clearly not draining correctly. Because there is fluid in them. Oh, I say meekly. I see.
He says we need to have Baby Girl do a sleep study. I stupidly ask “they do that for kids?”. Even though I know the answer, I am stalling while my brain is trying to figure out why it took me 2 years and 8 months to get to this point. My mom and brother both have sleep apnea – surely it should’ve occurred to me that Baby Girl could have the same issue. I’m told it isn’t exactly the same – Baby Girl probably has obstructive sleep apnea. Meaning she is basically choking on her own tonsils. Nice. That’s something you always want to hear about your precious one. That would, however, explain the chronic coughing. Also, he throws in for good measure – if she’s got obstructive sleep apnea, it will lead to behavioral problems and issues in school. Hmmm. I think we’re already there with the behavioral problems. I mean, I know she’s a toddler, but honestly she is a very difficult and cranky toddler an awful lot of the time. Maybe some of that can be explained by lack of correct sleep?!
As we leave the ENT’s office I am both reassured and horrified. None of this sounds like a walk in the park, none of it sounds like something I want my Baby Girl to endure. But maybe, just maybe, if we get through all this Baby Girl will actually learn to sleep well. And maybe we will all be happier.
Coming soon – the actual sleep study and results. Meanwhile, here is an adorable picture of Baby Girl sacked out one day in her Sissy’s bed.
