Recovery Bites

Should I be surprised that a one-year old has a hard time after having her tonsils and adenoids out?  It seems that these surgeries are often pretty rough on little ones, even though I don't think that most parents are really given an accurate idea of what to expect.  Glad that I read other parents' accounts so that I am not totally floored, but even so, it's not fun.

We had a hard time yesterday getting Cora to take much fluid after coming home from the hospital.

Then this morning she awoke with a fever and continued to refuse to drink. After giving her the pain meds, she took about a teaspoon of chilled breastmilk by spoon, only to vomit it all right up.  Then her fever rose even more.  She went about 15 hours without urinating, and now it's been 8 hours yet again.

Yes, we're back in the hospital.  Funnily enough, once we got here Cora actually started nursing (the first time she took much volume since surgery day).  Thinking we might be in the clear, her doc opted to wait on the I.V.  And we're still waiting.  If she hasn't peed by 8:00 (which will be 11 hours and will make only 1 time in a 24-hour period) then he'll start the IV.  Her nursing has waned a little too.  Sigh.

She has spent almost the whole day here sleeping.  Odd.  Really.  Because if you know anything about why we are here in the first place, it's because Little Beanie doesn't really sleep.  At least not for more than an hour or so at a time.  Today she would wake up and nurse, cry, write around and go back to sleep.  Good, I guess, since she obviously needs it.  But disconcerting too.

We also had to fight for some new pain medication today.   Based on dozens of parents' online accounts, Lortab is notoriously painful for kids to swallow after a throat surgery.  According to online ingredients lists, it's an alcohol base.  Stands to reason that it would hurt to pour alcohol on an open wound, doesn't it?  And Cora panics when we give it to her.  At this point, she's getting mad even with regular Tylenol, so we imagine she's developing fear of the meds.  We stopped giving her the Lortab this morning, noting that it turned her into a wackadoo and that giving it to her obviously hurt a lot.

But when we talked to her doc, he swears that it's a water based medicine and that it's only the taste that kids don't like.  Even though all the internet stuff says that there's alcohol in it and even though it obviously is very painful to take.  I may not be a medical doctor, but I know when something is hurting my baby, and that stuff does.

So after some back and forth, we finally got Tylenol with codeine.  She's still mad when we give it to her, but we can tell it's not as painful.  So score one for us.  Finally.

Anyway, she's actually awake for pretty much the first time today.  Taking microscopic sips of watered down apple juice and getting her Signing Time fix for the day.  I'm getting ready to try another nursing session to see if we can get one more wet diaper before we have to subject her to a likely horrific IV stick.  (I should think more positively, shouldn't I?  So, yes I envision it going smoothly with just a tiny bit of crying...) (Maybe this is a lot of parentheses, but for people who aren't a parent to a child with Ds, it is very common for our kids to be very difficult for blood draws, IVs and such.)

OK, sorry for rambling.  Gotta get back to my girl. Thanks for keeping up with us.

Maybe photos tomorrow?  No promises at this point.