Loopy Lukie and the Repaired Soft Palate

This is very long, so if there is only one thing you do with this post, watch the video!

Back in February I took Luke into his ENT because of some concerns we had about his speech. We had noticed it pretty much from the beginning of getting his tonsils and adenoids out, but I was waiting to see if it would go away. After waiting a year, I decided that was long enough. The noise he made is hard to describe, it was kind of a glottal/nasal sound and for some reason it was much worse when he was reading. When we took him in for his appt they put a fiber optic camera down his nose (which he did awesome with - what a tough kid) and found that his soft palate wasn't sealing closed all the way. This causes a problem with the sounds that need it to be sealed. This is something he's had all his life, but the bulk of the adenoids compensated for it before.

We were told that he would need a sphincter pharyngoplasty if we decided to have it repaired. It wasn't life threatening, but we figured as a quality of life issue it would probably be a good idea. Mostly we were nervous about him getting teased about the noises he made as he got older (his siblings and dad were already on top of that).

As we got closer and closer to the surgery date, Luke was getting very excited for all the popsicles and ice cream he was about to get. Jacob and I were a little nervous about what the recovery would be like and of course any surgery is scary, just for the anesthesia alone. I had done some research, but hadn't been able to garner much because this is an extremely uncommon surgery. Only 3-4000 of kids that get a T and A need it. None of the nurses in the hospital had ever seen anyone get it, luckily his doc had done it before and was well skilled at it. One of the sites I found had a post surgery checklist and it mentioned that only soft foods would be allowed for a month! I was hoping that this wasn't actually true. I was prepared for about a week of it, but Luke would have probably starved to death with a month. Even he can only eat so much ice cream.

The effects of calming medication right before surgery.

The surgery date ended up being the last day of school. Luke wasn't too bummed to miss it, especially because his sweet teacher gave him a nice big bag of candy corn for his surgery. He made sure to eat as much of it as he could before surgery. Jacob stayed home with the kids that day (Elle was at girl's camp in Utah that week) so I could take Luke to the hospital. Our check in time was 7am so we had to leave at the terrible time of 6:15 am. Add to that that I hadn't been sleeping well because of my lingering congestion and I was one tired mama.

We didn't sit out in the waiting room for too long before they pulled us back. It took a couple hours though before they were ready to take him back to surgery. Luke watched some spongebob, played the iphone a bit and tried out his usual crude jokes. He was able to pick out a stuffed animal too to keep with him during the surgery. He wasn't nervous at all. I count my lucky stars that my toughest kid is the one that has had to go through this.

It was hard to say goodbye to him as he went back to surgery, but I knew he was in good hands. The surgery itself took about 2 hours. I spent the time reading my book and periodically attempting to sleep. When I was finally able to go back into recovery, Lukie was one sad boy. He was practically inconsolable. It broke my heart to see him in so much pain and not even be able to hold him. The nurse kept giving him more and more morphine, but she could only give him so much at a time. Finally, when he was at his max dose, he fell asleep. They had to give him a little oxygen at that point because of how much morphine was in his system. I was keeping a close eye on him, but it was a relief to see him calm.

After a couple hours in recovery, they took us up to his room. The T and A was just a day surgery, but this one requires an overnight because some kids refuse to eat or drink anything afterwards. He was on a saline drip for quite a while. He slept quite a bit of the afternoon away. He was able to take a few sips of drink here and there, but he kept complaining about his stomach hurting. This was really killing his appetite so that was a tad frustrating. After he threw up a couple times, we finally figured out it was his pain medication upsetting his tummy. They switched him over to just ibuprofen at that point and he was off to the races. I went to get myself dinner at around 9pm that night and was surprised when he requested fries. The doc had told us to just let him guide us on what he feels like eating (only crackers and really hard foods were restricted - way better than a liquid diet). I wasn't counting on him eating the fries, but I got him some anyways, just in case. I was shocked when he chowed them all down. Maybe this recovery wasn't going to be so bad after all. He was very excited to be able to order breakfast the next morning too.

Luke's beloved 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Marshall, came to visit him in the hospital that day. It made him so very happy, plus she brought him more candy corn and a cute balloon. She's one of those rare people that just light up whatever room they are in. Jacob brought the kids that evening too. The nurse gave them all some ice cream so they had a great time.

After all the sleeping Luke had done in the afternoon, he wasn't super tired at night, but he slept most of the way. I had to wake up periodically to help him with stuff since he was chained to the monitors and iv. I'd say I got enough sleep to survive. There was some banging noise down the hall that was driving me crazy though. Not the most comfortable bed either. I ended up downloading a white noise app and that helped somewhat.

Luke's breakfast took awhile to come and he was starving, but even with that, he still only ate half of the meal. It was fine though because he was already exceeding expectations with how much and how well he was eating. They were pretty amazed that the ibuprofen was all he needed.

Hospitals, being as they are, we had to wait a good few hours for the doc to come in, check him out and release us. We were glad to get out of there! Luke was raring to go. We had to keep walking the halls and he even played some wall ball in the courtyard. He was practically climbing the walls, he couldn't handle not being able to run around. On the way home from the hospital he had a cheeseburger. His throat did hurt him to eat, but not enough to stop him. I've never been so grateful for his appetite.

 We are now two weeks past surgery and Lukie is doing great. His throat doesn't hurt at all anymore and we're enjoying our summer.