Recovery & Celebration

Wake up early & have more life. I saw this pic when I was stalking casually browsing someone's Facebook page over the weekend. As discussed before, I am Not a Morning Person. However, this morning had me out of the house before 5 a.m. Thus leaving my house when it was still dark and getting to my destination after the sun has dawned is likely to be as close as I come to willingly Waking Up "Early to Watch a Sunrise." The skies were very cloudy, so it never actually got "sunny," but the color of the world at dawn was peaceful. However, I still don't hope to see it at any time again in the near future.

 

Unfortunately the early departure time wasn't to embark on a road trip for summer adventure. I had to have Benjamin at CHKD by 6:15 a.m to register for his surgery. A little over 4 hours later, we left the hospital with two more ear tubes and two less adenoids than we arrived with. How sad is this pic?

 

We didn't have "ear issues" with the older boys so this has been all new Mommy ground for me. Benjamin had ear tubes put in two years ago. He has grown enough that the tubes have fallen out of the canal (but not the ear). We are still dealing with excessive fluid though so we had to get new tubes put in. He is a loud mouth breather. I think slightly obstructed breathing is one reason he is such a terrible sleeper. So, having his adenoids removed when it is conveniently coupled with the already scheduled surgery, will hopefully assist those issues. Although the ear issues were probably inherited from Jason, Benjamin's allergy issues are surely 100% my genetics. How bad are my allergies? I cleaned the blinds today wearing sunglasses to keep the dust out of my eyes. From what I understand, removing adenoids will also make Benjamin less snotty from allergy issues, which means less fluid being backed up into his canals, and thus less ear issues.

 

The nurses brought me back into Recovery before Benjamin woke up because he was fighting it so bad and just overall miserable. So I rocked him and waited for him to recover from the anesthesia. It was all very sad. Once home though, he rebounded quickly... to the point that I could barely stay conscious from exhaustion and found him with unzipped pajamas trying to hide the rather large label maker in one of the legs. He said it was his "phone." Stuffing "phones" into his pajamas has always been his translation of watching us take our cell phones out of our pockets. (I still don't know where he found that label maker though.)

 

 

 

Cameron had a pretty big day too. While I was at the hospital with Benjamin, Cameron was at the Orthodontist with Jason.  There are some kids that would benefit from braces but it's not life-changing if they do not get their "teeth fixed." Cameron was not one of those children. It is with pure motherly love that I say the child looked like an aardvark before braces. He was the most extreme of thumb suckers despite every method we tried to curb the habit. His orthodontist treatment began with a palate expander that I had to crank each night and it's been a very long road since then. He should definitely be one of those before & after picture comparisons hung in the orthodontist office.

 

Follow-up appointments for both boys over the next several weeks make me very glad I was able to schedule all this during summer break... although it's not quite equal to a tropical drink in the hand and toes in the sand.