From the Kadish Family: Poor little guy

My poor baby Tristan has been through a lot this past week. It all started about a month ago when he got his first ear infection since getting tubes. I didn't think too much of it at the time since it was the first one in so long and I figured he was bound to get at least one, even with tubes. Our pediatrician put him on a 10 day antibiotic and it pretty much cleared up. Then about 2 weeks ago he was acting really fussy and just plain out grumpy, which I thought could be attributed to his 2 year molars coming in, adjusting to the new baby, less attention from Mommy (not that this bothers him if Victor is home), being stuck at the house more often, etc.

Guess I was wrong because he started running a temperature the weekend before last and pulling at his right ear. We called the pediatrician and told her we thought he had another ear infection (much to our dismay) and she prescribed an antibiotic for him over the phone and said to give him Motrin/Tylenol to reduce the fever. We followed instructions and by Tuesday he still had a low grade fever so off to the doctor we went. She confirmed the ear infection and prescribed him a new antibiotic. This antibiotic seemed to work since his fever went away, but he broke out in a rash during the next day or two. Once again I called the pediatrican and she said it could either be an allergic reaction to the medicine or if he had a virus it oculd be that leaving his body.

On Thursday I decided he needed to go in again to see what this rash was. He already had a follow-up appointment with the ENT (ear, nose, throat doc) for Tuesday (yesterday), so I called their office and asked if there was any way they could squeeze him in on Thursday so we wouldn't have to wait until Tuesday, over the holiday weekend. Luckily, they did. Off to the doctor again.

The ENT checked out his ears and his rash and the conclusion was his tubes are coming out (which they are supposed to do) and his body was having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. So we needed to stop the antibiotic and Tristan needed to get a new set of tubes and have his adenoids taken out. BUMMER!!!! We were so looking forward to no more tubes, meaning no more plugs in the bath and pool.

We scheduled the surgery for Tuesday (yesterday) and gave Tristan a new antibiotic over the weekend. We arrived at the outpatient surgery area of the hospital yesterday around 6:30 a.m. for what is usually around a 15 minute procedure and easy recovery. I took much longer than 15 minutes and not such an easy recovery.

We gave Tristan a liquid dose of the anesthetic and the nurse took him off to the operating room where they would giv ehim his IV and sleep gas. Apparently they couldn't find a vein in either of his hands, after 5 pokes, so they ended up putting in the top of his foot...which we found out afterwards.

The doctor put in new tubes and removed his adenoids and then the nurse came to see us. I immediately thought something was wrong, but she just wanted our consent for the doctor to snip a little piece of skin on the under side of his lip that can cause the two front teeth to come in with a large space. We signed and I felt a big sigh of relief that it wasnt anything else...everything was pretty much done and Tristan would be back in our arms soon. Not quite.

Within a few minutes the doctor came in and told us everything went well and Tristan was asleep in recovery and they were just waiting for him to wake up. So, we sat and waited what seemed like an eternity. I started to hear screaming that sounded like my child and finally the doctor came in to see us. He said that Tristan woke up and was so disoriented and upset from the anesthesia that he blew out the clot of blood in his nose where they had stopped the bleeding from the surgery. We found out from one of the nurses later that he was bleeding quite a bit at that point, there was blood all over the sheet, the wall, him, his gown.

The doctor needed to put him back under and suck the blood out of his nose and stomach. Poor Tristan had to be intubated (tube down his throat) again and given Demerol to calm down. After about 45 minutes they finally brought him back to us, still pretty groggy. He had to stay about another hour and a half until he could drink some juice and wake up a bit. He came home and pretty much slept all afternoon.

Once he woke up around 4ish he was in good spirits, ate a little something and wanted to play...kids are definitely resilient, but I'm not too sure about their parents!!!

Pre-Surgery
I don't want to be here