Tylers Tonsils

Doesn't this picture just break your heart!  Our poor Tyler had to get his tonsils and adenoids out in September 2013.  While we were on a summer trip and I was sleeping closer to him I realized his snoring had gotten worse.  It actually wasn't even snoring, he sounded like Darth Vader, he was just breathing out of his mouth and not out of his nose at all when he was asleep.  He also started to wake up more in the night, so I decided to call our pediatrician.  He suggested we take him to a ENT specialist to see if he needed to have his tonsils removed.  A week later we had an appointment at the ENT office.  Before he even examined Tyler he noticed his voice and said, "do you hear how his voice is muffled?"  I just thought that was his voice!  The he examined him and said that he had huge tonsils and a large adenoid pad and that both needed to be removed ASAP.  He pretty much had child sleep apnea, his tonsils and adenoids were so large that they were cutting off his air supply when he slept, so he was waking more at night because he couldn't breath.  If you know Tyler, then you know he is pretty much the friendliest kid around, the doctor was shocked that he was so friendly.  He said usually kids with this severe a case are so grumpy and tired all the time because they never get REM sleep because they are always awakened when they can't breath.  Tyler did take a 3 hour nap every afternoon, so I think that was helping! :)  The doctor said he usually observes kids for a few years and watches how they progress, but Tyler was so severe that it needed to happen now.  Since he was only 2 1/2 we went to Primary Children's Hospital.  They said there was a good chance he would have to sleepover after the surgery, so they could monitor his breathing, but he did great and we ended up not having too.  On the day of the surgery my mom came with me, Devin stayed home with Sadie and Tanner and then came up later.  He had to fast for 12 hours before hand and that was hard to explain to a 2 year old!  Luckily we had to be there at 8 AM.  When we arrived we had prep work things to do, his actually surgery wasn't until 10 AM.  I was nervous he would be stressed to go back with the surgeon and not with me, but by the time his surgery time came around he wanted apple juice so bad that when the anesthesiologist asked him if he was ready to go he said, "Let's do this" and went running down the hall with him!  It cracked us up, such a Tyler thing to do!  His surgery was about an hour long and everything went well.  The ENT said his adenoid pad was the largest he has ever removed from a child.  When he woke up he was in a lot of pain and was crying, it was really sad, but after they got his pain medication under control he did well.  We got to go home that night and luckily my mom came and stayed with us for a few days, everything is always better when grandma is there!  It was a really rough 2 weeks of recovery; he had a lot of pain, he woke up 6 to 7 times a night for almost 12 days.  So many people love our little Tyler, so he was showered with gifts and visitors, so that really helped!  When Devin and I were in the middle of it we were wondering why we did this, but now months later with it all behind us we can say it was totally worth it.  He sleeps so much better, does not snore at all, he eats a lot of new things that he didn't like to eat before because it hurt to swallow them.  It has been a really good thing for him and were really glad that we caught it as early as we did!  Hopefully Tyler won't remember any of it and Devin and I are just hoping we don't have to go through it again with any of our other kids!