Payton's Surgery

Payton is recovering from her tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy/ear tube placement surgery. She had a lot of work done yesterday. I want to thank all our family and friends for their good wishes and prayers. I especially want to thank our friend here in W-S for all their support. It's not easy being away from family when you have to go through something like this, but it's so wonderful to have friends that are there for you like family :)

So, we had to be at the hospital at 6:15 am. We dropped Ian off at Samuel and Sarah's house at 6 am. I had told Ian that he was having a special breakfast/morning play date all by himself which he thought was very cool and special. The kids weren't awake yet, but Jill had the TV on and had toys out for him to play with. Ian let me go without a fuss, but Jill said he stood in the same spot for half an hour. Jill tried to play with him, but he just stood there looking around. Finally when Samuel woke up at 6:30, Ian ran up to him and said 'hello!' over and over again. Then Ian started playing. Jill said Ian was 'an angel' - thank God :)

Payton didn't go back to surgery till 8 am. She had made friends with one of the nurses and was counting butterflies that were painted on the wall as she was wheeled away. It was hard to see her go.  Scott and I rushed to the cafeteria to get breakfast because the procedure was only suppose to take 30 minutes to an hour. We came back to the waiting room to eat and we ran into our friend Bill. He came to sit and wait with us. He was a great distraction. Finally after about 50 minutes, the ENT surgeon came out. Payton was fine and recovering. Evidently we made the right decision to have the surgery done. The poor girl had mucus and goop all up in her sinuses. The adenoids were 100% closing off any way for her sinuses to drain. Her ears had very gooey fluid behind them. The doctor thought that she probably had at least 40 dB hearing loss (that's mild to moderate hearing loss) because of the fluid. Thus the tubes went in. The hearing loss shouldn't be permanent. In fact, she probably could hear better yesterday after the surgery than before. When we were loading in the car to go home, Scott started the engine, and it scared her. She said that it was loud. Then Ian started yelling like a duck. Payton didn't like it at all. She thought he was really loud, too. She will have some readjusting to do.

Payton was a little disoriented and agitated in the recovery room. I tried to calm her down, but it wasn't working too well. She was scared and she had the IV in her arm which she didn't remember going in. So they gave her a little morphine and she calmed down. We went up to a 23-hour recovery room. It was private and very nice. We were on the 11th floor and had a great view of Winston-Salem. Payton slept and slowly got better throughout the day. She tried eating ice cream, but her favorite things to eat yesterday were french fries with ketchup and jello. Our friend Robin came buy with a cute stuffed panda bear from her kids, Reese, Evie, and Tucker. Payton loved on it and felt better. She was taking her medicine well enough and drinking enough, so we got to go home last night at about 7 pm.

Payton had a good night last night. She woke up for pain medication, but went right back to sleep. Today she's been playing the computer, coloring, watching The Backyardigans, and even doing her pretend play. 

Payton is talking differently. Right now she's talking a little through her nose and her pronunciation is not as good as it was before the surgery. I'm thinking that it will get better as the inflammation goes down and she heals.