I dread the coming out of anesthesia part. She will cry just because I’m not there and then of course she’ll be in pain, so this kills me. I know the nurses will try to comfort her, but I don’t want it to hurt her (crying/screaming with the freshly removed tonsils). I am just planning to get no sleep over the next week (maybe more) and I hope to comfort her best I can. I just hope she doesn’t refuse to drink. The dehydration possibility scares me too.

thanks, Chris, for this enormously helpful blog!!!

I hope everything goes well. I’m really glad the article, and stories of the other parents and kids has helped. I have written a lot of articles and fooled around on the internet with all kinds of things, and this is by far the most rewarding thing I’ve done in a long time. It’s really great to read the stories of how it’s helped other families. Thanks so much for visiting, commenting and sharing your story!

Since I was helped so much by this chain of messages, I take it as an obligation to share my experience with our 4 year old son .. We are in Day 6 now.

Summary:

1. You would be surprised how strong the kids are when it comes to tolerating pain. Infact, parents can only make it worse by being too worried. If Parents are positive, the child is even more positive. So Rule 1 : You dont have to talk of the pain, you have to talk of the time when it will be over.

2. Different kids react differently to anaesthesia.. some get up shouting and kicking..others get up as if nothing happened.. neways all you can do is take it in the stride. Doctors will take care of making him comfortable.

3. Gift: It does wonders. In my experience, the more you talk about it before the surgery, more they anticipate it and look forward to the surgery. We told our son that doctors will take him for sleep, meantime papa will go and buy some gifts. When he gets up, he will see papa with a gift. Tell him what gift you will buy for him and make sure it is something he loves. We had a promise: His promise was to be brave when it hurts a little bit and my promise was to get him the gift.

3. Day 2 is difficult in the sense that child has real problem swallowing. At one point we were ready to take him back to Hospital as he was not swallowing even the liquids including medicine. Just before we were ready to go, he drank a glass full of juice so be prepared and anticipate it.

4. Medicine: Codeine does wonders and makes your child feel better immediately. My sense is it is too strong. Within 5 mnts the pain is gone and the child goes to sleep. I personally prefer giving it not more than 2 times in a day. During daytime we prefer giving just the Tylenol. But I would suggest that from Day 3 to Day 5, give him only codeine.. these are really painful days for the child.

5. Keep the room well lighted and tell him lots of stories.

6. Keep encouraging him and appreciate him for being so brave. Tell him you are there to help and based on the bravery he has shown he will get well sooner.

Will share more as the days pass.

Thanks All!! Take care.

Even before I took my 4 year son for Surgery, I knew nothing would help me more than this article.

Our son has been recovering exactly as you described. He is in day 5 and I am glad the difficult part is almost over.

Thanks again……..This is the kind of information parents look for and I found it nowhere other than here.

We are going shopping next weekend for a gift for him. I’m not telling him much about the surgery. It’s just my feeling that it will cause him much stress worrying about it so he know’s he’s going to sleep,will wake up with a pretty bad sore throat and we will have a present for him when he’s ready for it. He’s excited about the gift:)

Looks like it’s been a while since the procedure. How did things turn out? I would think you are all on the mend by now. Is there any update you can share with us?

I would have to agree with you that your situation sounds pretty unusual, I’d say your completely within reason to be concerned.

Let us know how things turned out…

My son (20 months) had an adenoidectomy with myringotomy 10 days ago. I am concerned because he will not talk. He got the surgery due to hearing issues and the fact this is speech was delayed. He was making simply sounds and at a 1 year olds speech level. Now he just keeps his lips together and hums/points to things. He also will not swallow his saliva, but will eat and drink. I’ve spoke to a number of doctors/nurses and all have said that it is very unusual, especially since he did not have his tonsils removed, but none can give me any answers. The last ENT nurse I spoke with said that it is probably psychological and just post traumatic stress. This doesn’t sound right to me… Others have chimed in that he probably just hears himself differently and doesn’t like it. I think if this was the case, he would be over it by now. Has anyone else experienced their children not talking afterwards? Again, he didn’t have his tonsils removed so he would not have the sore throat associated with that. His pediatrician also checked for infection and didn’t see anything. I guess as parents we just had the expectation that he would wake up taking up a storm. It’s very frustrating that he is about 85% less verbal that he was before the surgery. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

We didn’t travel after Matthew’s surgery, but I can say that 4 weeks after the procedure he was pretty much back to himself. I can’t say whether or not that means he was healed enough to travel on an airplane or not. I imagine that with all the delicate tubes and connections in the ear it might be worth taking to the Dr. about.

I have just been to see the consultant today who assessed our daughter, aged 7 and has said that there is no alternative to surgery! – her tonsils have been inflammed for about 8months and just in the last nine weeks has had 4 antibiotics!!!!
He said that he had a spot available on 29th August – however, we are on a longhaul flight at the end of September and I dont know if she would be recovered enough – 4weeks and 3days post op – incase of bleeding etc etc.
now that I am home, I am wondering if I have done the right thing – now it will mean, she will not get her tonsillectomy until mid-late October!
Any advise???
Anyone else travel as soon after surgery – an 11hour flight followed by a 2hr flight and staying away for 2weeks before the same flights home.

Thanks a million,

So worried!!!

Seems your little fella did well compared to my grandaughter (also 4) This is her 5th day post op…..she has spiked a fever and has had to return twice for IV fluids. Although she wants to eat and drink, she is having a problem! We almost have to force her to eat and drink! She is already so tiny…is hyper and she must have a metabolism like a rabbit…when she is able to eat, she can out eat me but doesn’t seem to gain an ounce!

I hate seeing her like this or any child for that matter. Glad your boy had more good days than not and thnaks for a great article!

Jenn Wilson

Jenn Wilson

My 4 year old son, Jonah, will be having his tonsils & adenoids out on Thursday, June 11th. I was a little worried about the pain he would experience post-surgery but this web site prepared me so that at least I now know what to expect. Thank you for sharing your experiences… I will have to come back in a few weeks to share ours.

Take care,

Jenn Wilson

Our story mirrors those already listed here. We very anxiously entered into the procedure after having our son suffer bouts of ear and tonsil infections every month for about 2 years. We had the operation booked for a year ago but pulled out at the last minute due to our concerns. He has had so many antibiotics his teeth are becoming discoloured.

Day 1: operation at about 8.30am. Dr said his tonsils were chronically infected and when they came out the dr squeezed them and pus came out. We felt so relieved that those tonsils were now out and clearly the operation was very much needed.

Our boy slept for about 5 hours after the operation, then woke and ate vegemite sandwiches, custard, yoghurt and got his gift for being so brave. They left the hydration fluid drip in until about 7pm and they saw him eating and drinking well. I stayed overnight with him in the hospital which is fairly standard practice here in australia. He slept through that first night, cannot say the same thing for mum!

Day 2: checked out of hospital. at home, he seems ok, lots of DVDs and TV. We decided to use paracetamol without the codeine to avoid the constipation, he seemed to do okay on that every 6 hours. Wakes crying in the morning. mornings are the most painful but settles quickly with a drink of water and paracetamol. Started the antibiotics today too.

Day 3: he is still tired and weak, pain more noticeable, not wanting to eat or dring much, really had to work hard to get the water into him, i gave him some hydralyte in the end due to our concern about his low fluid intake on this day.

Day 4: wakes at 1am and vomits, little white bits come up – we hope it is not the scab! We think is becasue we tried him on the paracetamol plus codeine for the first time before bed to help the pain. No more of this for us!! Back to plain panadol and had no more problems with vomiting. complains of sore throat.

Day 5: he is still not much into eating or drinking. Although he will eat Macdonalds burger bun and fries. Our doctor said let them eat what ever they feel like. This was one of our hardest days. Complains of sore throat.

Day 6: a bit brighter today. playing for short periods and still lots of TV and quiet activies like story books.

Day 7: he slept all the night through last night, yay. he is looking brighter but has bags under his eyes – poor thing. This is the first night we did not wake him for a 6 hourly dose of paracetamol and he slept to 4.30am which was good. Gave him some paracetamol then and he went back to sleep.

Day 8: (today) playing well, much brighter. actually asks for the TV to be turned off which is a sure sign he has way too much of that! plays with puzzles and animals – making an animal safari. Singing and dancing along to scooby doo. still fussy with food but drinking much more. says he feels better. he has lost about half a kilogram in weight. we plan to send him back to preschool on day 16, which we think he will be very for by then.

Have shared our story too, hopefully assists other parents with kids undergoing this surgery. It is such a worrying and stressful thing to have your child undergo a surgery.

Goodluck

Thanks so much for all the great comments and posts. I’m so glad this post has been so helpful for so many folks!

Holly, I know it’s tough. How old were you when you had your tonsils removed? Everything I had read online before we did the procedure on our 4 year old indicated that the recovery and just general discomfort is much much worse the older you are.

Our son Matthew really didn’t have any trouble with it at all, and if you ask him about it today, he really doesn’t think it was any big deal at all. It will be interesting to see what sort of memory (if any) he has about it when he’s older.

Sharon. Our older son is mildly annoyed by noises and stuff like that. There are some restaurants that we have to be cautious about going to because he’ll complain about it being too loud. He gets it from his mother She’ll often become overwhelmed by too much “sensory stimulation.” I.E. me talking to her, the phone ringing, the kids screaming, the washing machine beeping, the doorbell ringing, the tv on in the background. She’ll literally just about put her hands over her head and just say “I CAN”T TAKE IT!” For me it’s pretty easy to just ignore all that noise.

But our older son Nick is very much the same way. If there is too much noise he just doesn’t like it. We took him bowling once with the neighbors and for a while ge had a good time but shortly after we started bowling he just had enough and said it was too noisy and wanted to leave. It’s interesting that he rarely says “It’s too loud” he’ll alway say “It’s too noisy” which I think is different, and important. I think it’s the number of different noises that are going on at the same time, more than having something to do with the volume of the noises.

Anyway, good luck everyone. I hope everything goes really well for you and your families!

Chris

He is 7 years old and it has been just over 2 weeks (15 days) and though the itching is messing with him he has another problem. He says his ears hurt but then complains it is to loud. I am wondering if anyone had issues helping them adjust to hearing so many sounds and much louder now? When I put a set of earphones on him at school to block out some of the sounds he said his ears were not hurting anymore. He cant focus worth a flip now because of too much audio stimulation.

He had seen a Dr that believed he was just misbehaving and ignoring his parents for years. They finally got a referal to an ENT specialist and they said he has a 25 decible hearing loss before surgery. Also that he was probably in serious pain all that time.

So now the issue I have at school and am desperately looking for answers to is how do you help them transition? This is overwhelming to the poor little guy. He is unable to do much of anything because the sounds around him bother him to much and he just keeps saying it is “to loud”. Any ideas from anyone that had a child that had this issue?

I believe that 100%.

I can’t believe they let you watch him go under. Our hospital would not for that very reason you experienced. WEIRD!

Day 5 (yesterday) was also our worst recovery day. We are no Day 7 now.

thewelchfamily.blogspot.com to see what we are going thru day 7 post surgery of our 4.75 year old daughter Hana

It’s been a good long while now since our son had the surgeries, and I can still say without a doubt that having the procedure was the right thing to do. Our Son Matthew sleeps much better, he’s less prone to ear infection and sore throat. All in all, the two weeks or so that it takes to recover are well worth the long-term pay off.

Good Luck! I hope everything turns out well for your and your family!

Chris

Sounds like things are pretty tough at your house these days. I’m sorry to hear that. I think you’re probably in the middle of what’s the more difficult part of the recovery.

My only suggestion is to make sure you give the prescribed medication on the schedule, even if your child seems to be feeling or doing ok. One thing our Dr. told us was that some of these pain meds require a few scheduled doses to sort of “build up” in their system to be fully effective. I think one of the reasons that our recovery was relatively non-problematic was that we were very diligent about making our son take his prescription medications on-time every-time. Even when he didn’t think he needed it.

I don’t remember what day it was, but whatever night it was that we didn’t give the medicine, we paid for it!

Hopefully thinkgs are going better today for you.

Chris

We did the prescription meds for like the first four to seven days.

I hope it does well for you and your son!

Day 3: Jordyn didn’t wake up (or at least she didn’t wake me up) until about 6:45 am. I know her throat has been hurting her, especially when she’ll only take a couple bites of her most favorite foods in the world. She is still refusing to have any Tylenol though. I think she’s afraid it’ll make her vomit like the Lortab did. She’s almost back to her normal self though, and drinking plenty of fluids. If she doesn’t want the Tylenol, I figured it’s best not to force it on her. I don’t know how bad it really hurts but she seems to be dealing with it just fine. She’s not crying or screaming about the pain and she’s been laughing and playing. This little kid is just amazing.

Jordyn fell asleep on the floor of the living room around 4:30 pm. Her sleep schedule has obviously gotten a little messed up, so I tried to wake her up at 6:45 pm and that’s when she complained of a headache. After quite a bit of pleading, I got her to finally take some Tylenol, and she fell right back asleep.

Day 4: Well, going to bed at 4:30 in the afternoon on day 3, I shouldn’t have been surprised when Jordyn got up at 2 am. She asked for some mac and cheese, which I gave her and then went back to bed. When she woke me up again at 6:30, I noticed that she’d barely touched it. She asked for some milk though, and she’s had 2 cups so far. She has talked about eating pancakes later, but I still think she’s avoiding having to eat because her throat hurts. She did sing this morning for the first time since her surgery, which is a great sign. This kid normally sings from sunrise to sundown. I always said if she doesn’t become a famous singer I’d be surprised.

Day 5: I know her throat still hurts but we really have to bribe her to get her to take any Tylenol. I got her a pizza and she ate 4 or 5 bites and said she was done. The only thing she really wants right now is milk.

Day 6: Just more of the same. Taking it pretty easy around the house.

Day 7: Every time Jordyn wakes up in the morning or from a nap, she’s extremely cranky, and many times she actually cries. When I ask why she’s crying, she tells me she doesn’t know. I can only assume her throat still hurts. This morning she told me a headache though, so it was a good excuse to get her to take some Tylenol. We have her post-op doctor’s appointment today at 2:15, so we’re hoping for a clean bill of health.

We had a trip planned to New Jersey a week after her surgery, so that morning we went for her post-surgery check up. The Dr said she was healing just fine, but when I told him about our trip he was a little worried when I said we’d be out playing in the snow because he said there was still a risk of bleeding and the dry cold air might affect her adversely. Once we got there (a day and a half later–we drove), there was no way I could keep her inside with all that beautiful snow just calling her name. Against Dr’s orders, we sledded, made snowmen and had snowball fights every day for the next week, with no ill effects.

Day 10 seemed to be the magic number for Jordyn. That’s when she started eating again and running around, singing, jumping and playing like her normal self. However, she still woke up once a night screaming for the next couple nights. I don’t know if she was in pain or having a nightmare or what, because she was so groggy when I went in her room, she didn’t know what was going on either. I just told her to lay down and go back to sleep and she was fine after that.

I’m glad you found this blog and the comments here helpful. Hopefully your procedure went well and so will the recovery!

I have to disclaim this of course and mention that I’m not a Dr. and I’m not giving medical advice, but I would call the Dr. and ask them to prescribe something else for the pain like Tylenol with Codeine or something. I know that our son was better during the first couple days than further into it. I don’t remember which day or days it was but just when we though we had turned the corner, it clearly got worse for him.

Anyway, I think it would be worth a call to the Dr. to tell him that she just can’t keep the Lortab down and that you’d like to see what alternative there is.

Good luck. I know it’s tough, but hopefully in a couple weeks it’ll all be behind you!

A couple weeks before the surgery, I started telling my 4-year-old daughter Jordyn what was going to happen. I let her know the doctor was going to put a mask on her face and she would fall asleep, that he would take out her tonsils, and then she’d wake up with a sore throat. After that, I told her, she could go home and eat ice cream and popsicles and spaghettios. There were times when she looked upset, but I’d just smile and remind her about the vacation we’d be taking as soon as she got better and how she’d get medicine so her throat wouldn’t hurt.

About a week before Jordyn’s scheduled surgery, I got a call from the hospital because they wanted to pre-register her for surgery. Then again the day before the surgery they called and got her completed health history. That same day I also went to the doctor’s office and got her pre-surgery information packet. They had me sign some release forms and gave me two prescriptions to fill, Lortab (Hydrocodone), a narcotic pain medication, and Amoxicillin, an antibiotic. They gave me a folder with some info for us and for the hospital and told us to show up at the hospital at 5:30 am the next day and that the surgery would start about 7 am. Jordyn was not to have anything to eat or drink after midnight. Not a problem since she was in bed by 8.

I woke Jordyn up the next morning about 4:45 am, got her dressed and into the car. We arrived at the hospital right at 5:30 and took advantage of the free valet parking. When we went inside, I was surprised to see 4 or 5 other families there already. We went to the admissions desk and checked her in and took a seat in the lobby. One by one the other families were called back, and we were the last ones to go, at about 6 am. We went to the day surgery unit and checked in at their nurse’s station. They took some of the forms the doctor’s office gave me the day prior and then showed us to our room. Once inside, jordyn had to take off her shirt and put on a hospital-gown type shirt and remove her earrings. Her nurse came in and talked to us a little about what was going to happen.

We watched a little TV until about 6:40 when she came back in and brought jordyn some medicine to help her relax. I don’t know what it was, but it made Jordyn loopy as heck. She acted sort of drunk, started mumbling and kept grabbing into the air at what she said were jellyfish. (Too much Spongebob??) When she wanted to get up out of bed, I made sure to hold on to her and it’s a good thing I did, since she had no balance whatsoever.

She was in that state for about an hour, and during that time two anesthesiologists, a couple nurses and a priest came in to check on her, ask questions about her health history and tell us what to expect. About 7:50 am the nurse came in to take her to the OR. I gave her a hug and the nurse told her they were going on a parade and she should wave to everyone in the hallway. I’m assuming it was the medicine they gave her, but she had no problems being wheeled back to the OR and barely even looked back at me.

At 8:10 am I got a call from the OR and they said Jordyn was asleep. I went down to the cafeteria and got some breakfast and then took it back to the room. At 8:45 the surgeon came in and said the procedure went well and there were no complications, and she was in recovery. At 9:20, they wheeled her back into the room (while I was in the bathroom—of course!) and I could hear her coughing. I came out and saw that she had been crying and was coughing a lot. She started dry heaving and the nurses told me she wasn’t supposed to do that because it could break a clot loose. They said they would take the IV out of her hand as soon as she finished the cup of Sprite they gave her. Jordyn’s never had Sprite before in her life and she definitely didn’t want any now. She took one sip and said she wanted to lay down. A couple minutes later she sat up and threw up all over the bed. It was a mixture of blood and mucus. I called the nurse, and she came in and helped us clean up. She said that was normal, and they always feel better after getting that out of their system. I’m pretty sure the Demerol had a lot to do with it, since it made me sick the one time I had it as well. I put Jordyn in my lap and she fell asleep. After a few minutes I put her back in bed and she slept until the nurse woke her up at 10:50 to check her vitals and give her some water. 20 minutes later, she had drank most of her water, so the nurse took out her IV and said we could go home. About 10 minutes after that we were in the car.

We pulled out of the parking lot and a block later Jordyn said she was going to throw up. I was at a red light and had nowhere to go, so I gave her my jacket to throw up on. Unfortunately it was a waterproof-ski jacket, so everything just rolled right off it and onto the upholstery of my 2-day old Nissan Sentra. We decided to just head straight home and clean up there. And luckily I was able to clean everything up. Thank goodness the dealership still owes me a free detail though.

Jordyn crawled right into bed and I put in a movie, then turned on a humidifier I bought just for this occasion. She fell asleep right away and woke up about 12:45. I gave her a dose of Amoxicillin and a dose of Lortab (3/4 tsp). For the next 4 hours she sipped on water, ate 3 bites of strawberry yogurt, had a lick of chocolate popsicle and a taste of chocolate pudding. About 4:45 pm she threw up all the water she’d been drinking, and immediately wanted a chocolate popsicle, which she devoured. About 6 pm she said her tummy hurt and we gave another dose of Lortab, and 20 minutes later she vomited again. I called the on-call doctor and he said it was most likely due to the Lortab, but was exacerbated by having an empty stomach. He said I could give her up to 3 tsp of Children’s liquid Tylenol, but to start out with 2 tsp. As soon as I gave that to her, about 6:30 pm, she fell asleep. So every 3 hours or so all through the night we did the Tylenol thing. I decided it would be better to wake her up and give her the medicine because I didn’t want her to wake up screaming in pain later—and I knew she’d go right back to sleep. She woke up around 12:45 am and said she was hungry. She had a bowl of whole wheat spaghetti with butter and tried a little strawberry Jello. I guess now is not the best time to be trying new foods though—she wasn’t exactly impressed. I was exhausted so I told her I was going back to sleep. We put on Tinkerbell and she stayed up for a little bit and eventually fell asleep.

All through the night I only slept for about 90 minutes at a time, between giving her medicine and her ringing her little bell to tell me she was hungry or thirsty or she needed a new movie.

Day 2: We eventually got up for good about 6:45 am. She had a little oatmeal, tried a bite of toast which turned out to be too rough to eat, had some more buttered spaghetti and drank some more water. She was starting to act like her normal self, talking a lot more, smiling, and even dancing in her room. About 9:30 am she said her throat hurt, so I decided to give her a half dose of Lortab. Not 10 minutes later she was curled up in a ball and telling her her stomach hurt. Shortly after that she got up, walked into her bedroom and got in bed. I followed her with the trash can and she vomited into it the second I brought it in. 10 minutes later she did the same thing. By 11:30 she had thrown up 4 times. I’m definitely saying no more Lortab. We’ll have to go the rest of the way with Tylenol.

I know it’s tough when you in the middle of it, but I can tell you that once your out of the woods, time flies and next thing you know you’ll have forgotten all about it! Except of course to comment on how much better the sleep and that they don’t snore or sound like they’re suffocating when they sleep!

I’m glad to hear that you’re out of the woods now and that things are getting back to normal!

I will say that I do not think I will ever recover from the anesthesia part. My son was very resistant to the mask and fought the doctor off a little. He was crying and yelling for my help. Finally they held down his arms and forced the mask on him. I was literally in pieces. I sat in the waiting room sobbing. I was no way prepared for seeing that. His surgery lasted about 45 minutes and we were brought to recovery. He came out of anesthesia disoriented and thrashing about. The nurse gave him a small dose of morphine which chilled him out. Due to the fact my son had diagnosed sleep apnea we stayed in recovery for 6 hours. Late that we were able to take him home. One thing to now is day 3 after surgery can be a bit of a hurdle. My ENT warned me this was usually the hardest day and he was right. We kept giving him the tylenol with codeine avery 4 hours and he slept a lot.

I hope every little one and big one that has this surgery has a smooth surgery and speedy recovery.