Medical Drama

No, this is not a post about Greys Anatomy!  A lot has happened since my last post.  Taylor was slotted in for a tonsillectomy on the 22nd of Feb, she has been suffering tonsillitis and tonsil stones continually for the past few years.  The funniest thing was that one of her long time dancing friends turned out to be having her surgery on the same day, same surgeon, half an hour before Taylor!  She went to school in the morning, she was a good sport considering she was fasting and had to go to cooking class!  We headed off to hospital in the afternoon and as it turned out Taylor and Carmelina were the last two having day surgery that day!  They went in one after the other, and came out of recovery the same way.  I think the nurses wanted to head home, as soon as Taylor's drip was finished we were pretty much out the door!  Carmelina's parents and I sat in the waiting room watching news of the Christchurch earthquake, which had happened that morning, Ronin was at his friend Rohan's place, it was late and we were ready to head home.

The first couple of days she wasn't too bad, and then she started throwing up everything.  She couldn't even keep water down, and the nausea stopped her even trying to eat.  So off to the ED at Canberra Hospital we went.  The ENT's registrar saw us and told her she would have to go into hospital overnight on a drip if she couldn't keep a bottle of water down in 2 hours, they gave her an anti-nausea tablet and she managed to do that so we went home.  She kept her fluids up really well but the pain increased and she couldn't eat more than a couple of teaspoons of soft food a day.  She lost 6kg in the week.

Last Wednesday she was having a good day, she felt she was on the way to recovery.  Chris was due home from two weeks away that evening.  At about 5pm her throat started bleeding and she was spitting out heaps of blood.  I rang the doctor's office and they said that was ok, as long as it stopped within half an hour, which it did.  An hour later, when Chris was home, it started again, but stopped fairly soon.  But half an hour later, more blood, so she and I headed off to the ED again.  She was bleeding a bit all the way and they told us we wouldn't be long getting in.  45mins after we arrived she started vomiting heaps of blood (thankfully into a bag, which was horrific enough as it was!).  They rolled out the wheelchair and whisked her in immediately.  Before long she was on had blood drawn, was on a drip, had seen the ENT and was admitted.  Luckily Adolescent Paediatrics had a bed for her, and a fold out for me, available and about midnight we were in bed, she was being pumped with antibiotics and steroids, gargling with, well it was pretty much watered down bleach!, and given something for her pain.  We were in for two nights and 2 days, and we were glad to get home on Friday afternoon.

Since then she has improved in leaps and bounds, her throat looks so much better it's unbelieveable.  We had a check up with the surgeon yesterday and he said she is 90% recovered now.  So finally, back to school on Tuesday!  Yay!  The doctor said that it was due to pain.  Teenagers, he said, feel pain more than others, due to hormones, and the more pain they feel, the more painkillers they take.  Some people have a bad reaction to the painkillers, which she did, hence the vomiting, which then dries out the throat and causes trauma and bleeding in about 5% of patients.  He much prefers to operate as young as possible, he told us at our first consult. Anyway she avoided further surgery for cauterization or blood transfusions so it was good in the end.

I saw a lot of parents in the hospital, and I hear friends talk about it all the time, not to mention what you see on TV and in the press.  I don't know how they do it.  Taylor's problem was not life-threatening so I was never really worried.  The nurses and doctors were so amazing.  Although I have always known how lucky I am to have healthy children, I have a better appreciation now for what those parents must endure, for weeks, months, even years on end.  My thoughts go out to them all.

Cheers,

Tracey