My baby needs surgery

Yes, my sweet 3 yr old angel needs surgery and it is killing me.

Ben has always had difficulty with colds and snotty noses, and he always sounded like he has something stuck in his throat... well.... he does! As the ENT said, he has some "Texas-sized" tonsils sticking out there.

It has been an interesting journey coming to this decision. A lot of self doubt and denial, and a lot of mother's intuition and "I just gotta say it" comments from family and friends that helped to push the denial out of the way and assured me that, yes, he does have a problem, and no, I am not making a big deal out of it, and yes, we do need some intervention.

This past Fall we had a series of illnesses back to back with strep and swollen tonsils. It got to the point that Ben would wake up and bring me the tylenol and tell me he needed medicine because it hurt so bad. Even when he was well, his tonsils remained very engorged. This started me thinking.... ya know.... this is not the first time we have been down this road with him. Wait a minute, maybe the fact that he snores like a grown man isn't cute. And wait.... those throwing up episodes... HOLY CRAP!! That happens a lot. When we stopped and thought about it, Ben was throwing up - sometimes in the middle of the night - at least once a week. He knows when he gets food stuck in his enlarged tonsils, he runs to the bathroom, takes care of his business, then comes back to the table. The scariest episodes happen in the middle of the night. Luckily he has always come to enough when he started to choke when he is snoring, that he has never aspirated, but... oh, I don't even want to think about that. We even found a picture of him from the Christmas before (2006) - it was a beautiful perfect close up of nothing but his face with a wide open mouth, and sure enough, his tonsils were huge even then!

He is having surgery next month, May 5th. He was supposed to have it today, but the MD had scheduled it at a surgical center and I just did not feel comfortable having my three year old have surgery at an out patient clinic. I am already panicked at the idea that they are going to send me home with him just hours after the procedure. The doctor did not sugar coat it at all either - "No, it is pretty miserable pain, you need to give him the tylenol with codeine every 4 hours on the dot!" He also said that he doesn't have kids in the hospital for complications from the surgical site, but rather dehydration because the kids stop eating and drinking because of the pain.... now that sounds like fun, doesn't it?

I am glad we are resolving this, I am not looking forward to the event itself, and I am praying for a speedy recovery.