Aaron's Adventurous Surgery

On Thursday March 29th Aaron went in to have a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy and deviated septum repair.  We had heard a lot of horror stories about these surgeries and knew it probably wasn't going to be a fun recovery, but we had also heard about how much better people feel after so we figured it would be worth it.

The first thing Aaron said when I saw him was "What in the heck was I thinking, kill me now."  I should have known by that to be ready for what was to come.  He then proceeded to tell me to call his mom and yell at her for not having him have the surgery when he was younger, he was not happy with her!  I had a hard time not giggling at that.  He was in a ton of pain and had a horrible head ache!  

 

 The doctor had said to make sure to give him his pain meds right when they were due and to not wait even if he said he didn't need them.  So because of that and because he was in so much pain and we never had it very much under control I was setting my alarm for every four hours to give him his pain meds and his anti-nausea meds- he was also very nauseous.

The next day he actually didn't feel too bad, I think because he was still pretty well hydrated from the day before.  I was really trying hard to push fluids on him and to keep him drinking.  

Saturday he woke up with a horrible headache and was pretty miserable all day!  I was still trying very hard to get him to drink, but he was not very interested.

By Sunday the headache was not any better and if anything it was worse.  He had been moaning and groaning all night long and I didn't know what to do anymore.  I couldn't get him to drink hardly anything by that point.  I decided maybe I needed to be the mean nurse and show him some tough love.  He hadn't showered since Friday and he stunk so I told him he had to get up and take a shower.  He didn't feel like he could even stand up though so I got the bath all ready for him.  It was probably around 3 or 4 in the afternoon and he hadn't peed since Saturday evening so I was getting a little worried.  He tried to get up and couldn't walk by himself so I had to help him in to the bathroom and in to the bathtub.  Just the movement of being up made his head a lot worse and he started throwing up.  So I helped him back to bed and decided if he didn't drink something in the next couple of hours I would take him in to the Instacare for some fluids (we had been told that dehydration was a common problem with this surgery).

I got the kids dinner and got them in bed.  By then Aaron was if anything worse so I called his surgeon.  They told me to take him up to the ER, but I really didn't want to go there so I asked them if I could just take him to the Instacare which they said was fine.  So I called a neighbor girl to come sit with the kids and away we went. 

When we got to the Instacare they checked his sats and they were 84%.  I had thought his color looked a little off all day, but I just figured it was because he was laying in our dark room and I couldn't really see him.  The doctor came in pretty fast and Aaron had started throwing up again.  He took one look at Aaron and said we needed to call an ambulance.  I asked him if that was really necessary because it would only take me 20 min to drive him there.  He told me it would be the difference between being in the ICU and a regular floor.  He thought Aaron was going in to shock and that his body was starting to no longer compensate. 

They got oxygen on him and put in a couple of IV's which they were running antibiotics and fluids through and the ambulance got there and we were off.  Once we got to the ER we found out that the doctor was being a bit of a spaz and Aaron was sick, but not that sick.  He was severely dehydrated and had aspiration pneumonia.  The ER doctor wanted to admit him overnight, but Aaron didn't want to stay so they told us we could do whatever he wanted.  His sats were still sitting in the 80's which I wasn't very comfortable with, but I was outvoted so after 3 bags of fluid, more antibiotics, and several hours we came home.  He still couldn't pee after getting that much fluid because he was so dehydrated and since his sats were still lower than normal they wanted us to come back to the ER the next day for a check-up.

We went back the next afternoon and his sats were still in the 80's so they put the oxygen back on him.  They gave him 2 more bags of fluid and after another 4 hours his sats were finally in the 90's so I felt much better bringing him home at that point.

He was pretty miserable for another week and then I think it was about 2 weeks after the surgery he went back to work.  He worked for 2 days and other than his throat being really sore he was starting to feel more normal.

Then he woke up at 11:50 on the 12th and could feel something running down the back of his throat.  He was coughing and went in the bathroom and spit and saw pure blood in the sink.  He called my name and when I went in there I knew immediately that we were going to be going back to the hospital.  I called his surgeon and a neighbor again to come sit with our kids.  The neighbor got there in a couple of minutes and we jumped in the car and rushed up to the hospital.  He was kind of freaking out in the car because blood was gushing constantly out of his mouth and he kept pulling big blood clots out of his mouth.  He looked like a vampire!  I wish I had a picture now, but I didn't dare take one at the time because he was so stressed.  

We got to the ER where they paged the surgeon and the OR.  One of his scabs had partly come off and he lost about a quart of blood in 30 min.  They took him in for emergency surgery to stop the bleeding.  It was a LONG sleepless night especially because I was so pregnant!  They released him from the hospital the next day around 11 and he was pretty weak from the blood loss for a couple of weeks, but finally a month later he feels like he is back to normal.  We just finished getting all of the hospital bills and after adding them up the surgery should have cost us around $5000.  Because of all the complications it cost around $22,000.  I just hope that his health really is as improved as everyone says it should be and then the surgery will have been worth it.