Grant's Hospital Visit

For those who know our family well, you also know that we don't do anything normal. There is always an element of drama in just about everything we do. Whether it's strange illnesses, problematic pregnancies, kidney stone attacks during presentations, etc...we don't do anything small. So it was with Grant's recent tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy.

We recently discovered (after mommy noticed that Grant would stop breathing and through confirmation from a sleep study) that Grant had severe sleep apnea. The sleep study results showed that he would stop breathing while he was sleeping for up to 40 seconds at a time. The doctor was so concerned about the severity of his condition that she immediately ordered a special monitor for him to sleep with that would sound a loud alarm each time he stopped breathing for more than 20 seconds. It was also determined that he needed his tonsils and adenoids out along with tubes in his ears.

Of course I was totally upset that my little guy (only 21 months old) had to go through such a tough operation, but the doctor reassured me that this was totally routine and that it would make our little guy so much better. Well the day of the surgery came and I took my little guy into the operating room where they let me be with him until he fell asleep. I couldn't handle having my little boy on the operating table and I totally lost it.

I met Blake in the waiting room and we watched the clock. What was supposed to be a 45 minute surgery was taking way too long. After about an hour and a half a nurse told us that the doctor was watching him and should be out shortly. Then another hour went by and I started to get really nervous. Finally they brought us back to talk to the doctor. Apparently the doctor was pretty upset about how the operation went. He said Grant had the tonsils of an 18 year old who had had chronic infections. He said they were incredibly difficult to work with and were just falling apart. On top of that, the real concern was that he was having a hard time controlling the bleeding. He had cauterized and done stitches (which normally isn't usually needed) and Grant still kept bleeding.

At that point, he felt that the bleeding was under control again but he wasn't confident that he wouldn't start bleeding out again. So, he told us that he had an ambulance on the way to take him to Morristown Hospital (his surgery was being done in a surgical center nearby). That's when I started to freak out a little. They took me back to see Grant after they removed the intobater and woke him up. He looked awful. He was as white as a ghost and totally out of it. The next thing I knew the EMT's and police officers were running in and putting him on a stretcher. We ran to the ambulance and I rode with him. Someone from the surgical center drove Blake over - the police officer didn't want him driving under stress.

When we arrived in the pediatric ER, they quickly noticed how pale he was. After looking at his charts, they determined that he had lost about 1/3 of his blood and that he needed a blood transfusion. The poor little guy was completely limp. He looked awful. Unfortunately we couldn't give him our blood because it takes a few days to prepare it. After trying to get the right kind of blood for him (it took most of the day because apparently he has a rather uncommon antibody in his blood that they had to match), he was given the 3 hour transfusion that evening.

Once he received more blood, his color immediately started to look better and he began to regain some strength. Then more trouble began. Because his little throat was so swollen, he was having a really hard time getting enough oxygen. His whole chest was caving in as he worked hard to breathe. He went into what they call acute respiratory distress. They ended up having to give him some steroids to help reduce the swelling and then had to hook him up to oxygen to help him get enough air.

So, 4 sleepless nights and days later, they finally moved him out of the pediatric ICU and into a regular pediatric room once he was able to maintain the oxygen levels he needed on his own. The poor little guy had been poked and prodded over and over again. It just broke my heart to have them draw blood over and over again when his IV's weren't good after a while. Apparently he has really tiny veins so they had a really hard time starting an IV.

Thankfully, we have WONDERFUL family and friends who jumped in and helped us take care of kids and brought us meals. We got home Sunday and that night, I came down with a weird flu with 104 temperatures that lasted a few days. I don't remember a time when I've been that worn out! The good news is that our little guy is doing much better now. The doctor who did his surgery was really freaked out about the whole thing and was calling us and the hospital constantly to see how he was doing. He visited us on Saturday and explained that in 15,000 tonsillectomy's during his career, he has NEVER had this happen. The poor guy said he coudn't sleep and that his wife and kids didn't want to talk to him after what had happen (he was joking of course). Thank goodness he did have a lot of experience and could handle the situation but I think it really freaked him out. Poor guy. He was wonderful working with us.

Here's mommy and Grant in the ER when we first arrived. I don't know if you can tell but he's totally pale here.

Daddy and Grant in the PICU.

Grammy came to visit the little guy and let mommy get a couple hours of sleep.

Sleeping...finally!

The weekend that Grant was in the hospital happened to be the same weekend that Josh was flying in from UT, Elder Bednar was visiting our stake (and having dinner with my family which we missed out on) and my parents were getting ready to leave for Hawaii. Needless to say the timing wasn't ideal.

I was so bummed that we missed the chance to hear from Elder Bednar and have dinner with him. But, my mom said that at the conclusion of their dinner, Elder Bednar offered a prayer and prayed for our family and prayed that Grant would recover if it was the Lord's will and that his parents would have the strength they needed to get through this.

It made me think...okay, maybe we didn't get to have dinner with him or hear him speak. But, we had an APOSTLE pray specifically for us. Now that is pretty incredible!