Harper's Surgery

Just a little background leading up to surgery...

Harper has always had ear infection issues ever since she was a few months old. She had her first set of tubes at 14 months and seemed to be doing well at her ENT check ups. About a year had gone by, and I noticed she just wasn't where she should be with her speech. Her speech was muffled and kind of sounded like she spoke as if she couldn't hear. I got in touch with the head speech therapist in our school district to have her tested this past January. The process is to test hearing and vision first. Once she passes those, then they test speech. I scheduled an appointment with her ENT to have her hearing checked.

Even though she is smiling in the picture, she miserably failed her hearing test. I felt about an inch tall. How could I have missed this? She was scheduled for her surgery at the end of February...tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy, and reshaping of the turbinates in her nose. 

 Surgery day came quickly. How do you prepare your 3 year old that she's going to wake up in pain? It sounds dramatic, but it's not easy no matter how large or small the surgery.

 When they brought us back to see her, my heart fell into my stomach for a moment. Praise God this was minor surgery. Once again I was reminded of how blessed we are for a healthy child.

 She had a rough time waking up from the anesthesia. Since she had the bones reshaped in her nose, there was quite a lot of bloody discharge from her mouth and nose.

 She perked up a little after a popsicle, and we were sent home sooner than we were hoping.

 Once we got home, recovery started to get real. She was in a lot of pain, and there wasn't a whole lot I could do to make it better. We stayed on top of the pain medication, alternating hydrocodone and ibuprofen. She ate really well when the hydrocodone kicked in.

 Within a day or two, she had black eyes from the bone reshaping. It was so sad!

 Maggie got in on some snuggles.

 By day 10, she started to get back to her silly self.

 I am beyond thankful for my mom coming to stay and help!

Since surgery her speech has improved tremendously. She is still delayed, but when she has trouble saying a word, she can actually hear me say it then she will repeat it correctly. This is HUGE! We are in the process of starting speech therapy and will hopefully be caught up by the time she starts pre-k next year.

Pretty quickly after her 10 day turnaround, she woke up with hives covering her arms and torso. First thought was an allergy to penicillin but soon switched to a possible detergent allergy since it was getting worse and had been off the medication for a while. We went to her pediatrician and found out she had fifth disease. Lovely. She healed quickly and was back to normal within a couple of days.