Surgery #6

Kyle had his sixth surgery on Wednesday, February 25th (last week). He had a tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy, and ear tubes put in, all in one surgery.

His previous surgeries include:
Bilateral Laser Photocoagulation (laser eye surgery)- 10/24/06
Gastronomy Tube Placement - 1/3/07
Bilateral Inguinal Hernia Repair - 1/11/07
Valvuloplasty - 3/2/07
Nissen Fundoplication - 6/13/07

(Notice all of those surgeries were before he was a year old!)

Normally, this surgery is done outpatient but because of his cardiac history, they had him scheduled for 24-hour observation (his ninth admittance to All Children's Hospital). Because of his lung history, 24-hour observation became a week. The normal post-op swelling from the surgery made it harder for his already-damaged lungs to get the oxygen needed. His oxygen saturation levels kept dropping below 90% (which is bad). After the first few days, the levels only dropped while he was asleep (which is normal, to a lesser degree) and finally Monday night he went through the entire night without requiring oxygen and they discharged us early Tuesday morning.

He's doing well now and we hope that when the soreness from the surgery goes away, he'll be more receptive to eating. When we met with the otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist) at the end of January, she remarked that Kyle's tonsils were very large and may have contributed to his aversion to eating since they would increase his gag reflex. As if to confirm those suspicions, the next day at PPEC (the medical daycare he's been attending), they had to perform the heimlich maneuver on him for a cherio.