Avery's Recovery

Avery's surgery was 11 days ago now.

It wasn't the easiest road to get to where we are now.

She did awesome in the hospital-never complained about pain, took her medicine like a champ and had 8 popsicles the day of her surgery.

If only things stayed that good!

Before they left the hospital the day after her surgery, Avery started to not want her medicine. This was a HUGE struggle with us all throughout her recovery. They wanted us alternating tylenol and ibuprofen every 3 hours. She was resisting it so much that we just started doing ibuprofen every 6 hours like directed. But the problem with that was that by the time the 6 hours were up, she was in quite a bit of pain and would just be flat out miserable. She really needed to take the meds every 3 hours, so we bumped her back to every 3 hours. We got her the liquid form of both and I tasted them myself-they're not bad! I have no idea why she didn't want to take it, but it was really a fight. We started by using the syringe for the first few days, then something happened that we literally had to pin her down and shoot it in her mouth. She would get so upset that she made herself vomit! She has never done that before!  So then we started letting her drink it out of the dosing cup and threatened if she didn't, we'd use the syringe. That seemed to work for the most part. After a few days of her nonsense, I picked up some chewable ibuprofen. She loves taking her chewable vitamin so I thought it was worth a shot. We told her they were "special vitamins" and she had a choice of taking that or drinking the liquid form. She chose the chewable every time which was good. And she didn't think it was medicine. The only problem was that I think it hurt her to chew it. It took me a long time to figure that out but every time she took it, she would burst into tears. She wouldn't say what was wrong, but you could tell she was in pain. I think her jaw was really sore and the chewing was just too much for her.

She really wasn't into eating or drinking much either. Like I said, in the hospital she had 8 popsicles the day of surgery. She didn't touch another one until almost a week later!  The day she got home she didn't have much, although around bed time she requested Ramen noodles and mac n cheese-she had several bowls of each! We were impressed that she ate that kind of stuff the following day! She had days that she ate ok, and days where she barely touched a thing. I stocked up on popsicles, pudding, applesauce, ice cream, and jello for her thinking she'd have a field day eating all of those "treats" and she really didn't want anything...it was bizarre! If someone asked me to have ice cream and milkshakes all day long, I wouldn't turn them down!

Drinking was tough too. They wanted her to drink a quart and a half of fluid a day! Which to me seems like a ton. I know she didn't drink that much at all. We were trying to pump her with juice for the calories.  She normally doesn't get juice to drink so I thought she'd love it and she really had no interest. She wasn't supposed to have milk for the first few days, but once she was able to, she really pounded that down. Luckily she drank enough that she wasn't dehydrated-she was always peeing and had tears when she cried so we did ok.

The first 3 nights I think she woke up several times overnight. Gabe would try giving her medicine, but most times she wouldn't take it-which is why I think she woke up repeatedly overnight. She had a few nights of sleeping through with no problem too.

They did tell us days 5-7 would get worse again because that's when the scabs come loose. They were right-she definitely took a turn for the worse again those few days and again was waking up at night.

It seemed the worst parts of the day were first thing in the morning, after her nap and bedtime. I'm guessing after sleeping her throat was just really dry and it made it more painful. And it seems usually when you're sick that you always feel worse at night too.

We did have a few rough moments when I was home alone with both girls. Avery just got very clingy at times and had her meltdowns and sometimes they were at the exact time that Cassandra was crying or eating or something like that. It definitely was a stressful last week off of work! 

Avery really had no desire to get dressed or go anywhere at all. Most days she was glued to the TV watching her Minnie Mouse video (I'm extremely sick of that thing by now!). It was hard at times to get her to do anything else but that. We bought her some coloring/sticker books and she really didn't even want to do that! 

I'm glad to say though that yesterday and today she seems much better and more like herself. We got her out of the house a little bit the past few days which is good. She's eating better now and just seems happier and close to normal.

We've also noticed that she doesn't seem to snore much anymore which is great! I think her voice changed a little bit though. It sounded very different the first week after surgery. Now it sounds closer to what it was, but I still think it's a little bit changed too.

Well, I go back to work tomorrow and she goes back to daycare so hopefully all goes well with that!  I think she's ready for it!