Tonsil Holes

It’s done. She is on the mend.

I texted Julie yesterday: I feel guilty because I brought my perfectly healthy child in to have someone deliberately injure her.

So yeah, even with the evidence of Alyssa sitting next me, all healthy and awesome, I was feeling pretty awful about handing Olivia over to the nurse for her elective surgery.

But then, about ten minutes after I sent that text to Julie, the doctor came out. He told us that it went very well, that Olivia was in recovery. He went on to say that her tonsils were enlarged and had debris on them.

“They were just waiting for the next cold bug to come along so they could become infected again,” he concluded.

One more mark in the “You’re doing the right thing” column.

About ten minutes after the doctor left, a nurse came along to take us back to where Olivia was resting. She hadn’t really regained consciousness yet, the nurse assured me. But she felt O was on the verge of doing so and wanted her to have a familiar face when she did wake up.

The nurse in charge of her greeted us warmly and said, “She’s having a nice snooze. I think this is the best nap I’ve seen all day.”

I brushed O’s bangs off her forehead and whispered that Gram and Lyss and I were there.

After about ten minutes of watching her sleep, I saw a single tear well in the corner of her eye. I told her nurse that I thought she was waking up and was in pain.
At that point, he put some medicine in her IV and she opened her eyes for a couple of seconds.

She surprised all of us by being such a trooper. She ate half of a popsicle (which is more than her sister did…just saying.) She slept a little more, drank some water and some apple juice and then was finally ready to go home.

On the way home, we stopped at McD’s and she tried to eat a fry but opted instead for ice cream, saying, “The coldness on my throat feels good.”

When we got home, she asked why her tonsil holes hurt.

I tried not to laugh because, well, TONSIL HOLES! I told her that they hurt because, well, there were holes where her tonsils once were.

She ate some soup and some jello. She and her sister went upstairs and played with makeup.

Then, for dinner, she ate TWO pieces of pizza.

I know! Pizza! It took Alyssa four days to be willing to eat anything, let alone pizza.

After dinner, Olivia asked if she was allowed to have sweets because Tom had brought home a cake to celebrate her being so amazing during the entire procedure, before and after.

I told her she could eat anything she wanted, so she ate a piece of cake.

I got up every three hours through the night to give her medicine for the pain and when she woke up this morning, she told me her throat hurt. I reminded her that it was probably because it got dry through the night and so she asked for some water and a popsicle. After the popsicle, she asked for a Gogurt.

So yeah, basically, everything I feared for Olivia is going in the opposite direction.

I don’t want to jinx it but so far, she’s doing great. We’ll see how the next couple of weeks go. For now, I’m so glad we did this because I’m very hopeful that it will make her that much healthier and heartier.