Children's Hospital Today

So, I mentioned in my birthday post that Koen had a scheduled visit to the hospital today. He had to have some scopes done to check out his throat and lungs due to his recurrent croup. They had to take him to the operating room for these procedures and he had full anesthesia.

I had to wake him up at 5:30am so that we could get bundled up and out the door and down to the hospital (literally at the end of our street) by 6am. He did great with that. He was nervous that he would have to get a shot and I wasn't sure how they would administer it, so I kept just telling him that that might happen, but hopefully it wouldn't.

Thankfully, today our experience at the hospital was really pleasant. Everyone was friendly and kind. The process went relatively quickly. Meaning that we went through the waiting room, pre-op and meetings with doctors by 8am. Koen really enjoyed the time to play in the awesome play area near the pre-op room we had. He also watched a good amount of TV, so that was a fun treat for him too. Here are a few pictures before the procedures.

After all of that they had me suit up so that I could accompany him to the OR and then be with him as they put him under. I was not mentally prepared for what that is like. I've been through it before, but I've never watched it occur. It was really sad and scary to me. Koen screamed into the mask where they administered the "gas" and due to the large breaths he was taking he fell asleep really quickly. It is disturbing to watch your child go unconscious. I really hope I don't have to do it again. After he fell asleep, the doctor took the mask off and told me I could give him a kiss. I held myself together, but I was really actually crying.

After about an hour the doctors visited with me telling me that both his vocal chords and esophagus are slightly swollen and could be causing the repetitive croup. They did a few swabs/biopsies, so we will await those results to know if he has any viruses or bacteria that are in his lungs or esophagus that would be causing the croup as well. So the verdict is that most likely he will grow out of this swollen issue and thankfully his airways measured at normal levels and everything else structural looked good too! We figured that was the case, but it was great to know for sure.

Koen woke up from his sleep and they brought me to him right away. He was quite confused and very snuggly. We sat in a rocking chair for about a half hour until they let him go to a recovery room. There Koen just enjoyed eating popsicles and watching PBS. He did very well, but was definitely overly emotional and fragile due to the lack of sleep and the anesthesia.

We were home a little after 11am and Koen took it easy until lunchtime. Thankfully he seems to be holding simple foods down and doesn't seem to have any complications. I laid him down early for nap and he's been asleep since 1:30pm (it's now 4:45pm). He's coughed a little bit, but that is all.

Here are a few pictures of Tavin from his morning with Doug. I missed him terribly, but they had a sweet time hanging out!