Ten to Fourteen Days

Here is the picture I was going to put up with my last post, but forgot to.  This is how Spiff prepared Gunner for surgery.  He brought home this anesthesia mask and had the boys anesthetize Best Friend, The Bear.  He taught them how to put the mask on his face and say, "Take a Deep Breath."  Thus the title of my last post.  Gunner got it quickly, and I hope it made him a little less afraid of the OR.  But really, it was Hobbes who won my heart with this as he put the bear to sleep saying, "Now this bear is sweeping.  Wake up, bear!"

Aaaand, now on to less awesome things.  The last 10-14 days: A 4-year-old's recovery from tonsillectomy.  Sheesh, it was hard.  The first 24 hours were like a honeymoon period.  He ate well, slept well, drank well, acted fairly normal.  We even went to storytime at the library because he seemed fine.  I was shocked and thought that it might not be so bad after all.

Then the honeymoon ended, and the pain hit him.  He acted like a sick sick sick little boy for several days.  Lots of napping, lots of flushy red face, lots of grumpy.  I felt so bad for him.

He had good times when he felt almost normal, and it was hard for all of us to remember that he needed to take it easy.  I arranged for Hobbes to play at a friend's house for a couple of hours one day.  I thought it would be nice to Gunner to have some special one-on-one time with Mom.  But Gunner was just super mad at me that he couldn't go play, too.  I took him out to get ice cream for lunch, and he grumped at me the whole time until he fell asleep on the drive home and took a 2-hour nap.

The hardest part of the whole thing was the medicine.  The doctor told us to give him regular old Tylenol and Ibuprofen for pain.  We had to give it to him every 3-4 hours, around the clock.  This meant we were waking him up at night to give him his doses.  Can you see the problems with this?

1) He got really tired of taking his medicine.  It seemed like we were dosing him every time we turned around.  It didn't help that the stuff didn't taste good.  It also didn't make him feel immediately better, so he didn't think it helped him at all.

2) His throat really really hurt, and liquids were the hardest to swallow.  After a couple of days, he decided that he did not want to swallow them anymore.  He flat out refused to take his medicine because it hurt.  So every 3-4 hours, we got to have an awesome 30-40 minute fight with him about taking his medicine. 
Me: "You need to take your medicine, Honey." 
Him: "No, I'm not going to do it!"
Me: "It will help you feel better."
Him: "No, it won't.  I doesn't do anything.  I'm not taking it."
Repeat.  Gah!

3) Nights were a big problem.  During the day, he was talking, eating, swallowing, and things were mostly fine.  But at night, he was breathing dry air, and his throat dried out and hurt a lot more.  He was upset when we woke him up because he was happy sleeping (Oh, the irony of that!!!), and he was even more upset that he had to take yet another dose.  None of us are happy people at 2 a.m., and that made for unhappy dosing wars.

4) I tried waking him up on a regular schedule for the first few days so that we could control the pain better.  But when that stopped working because he was mad about being woken up and having to take medicine, I let him sleep until he woke up on his own.  That was another problem because then his medicine had worn off, his throat was dry, and he was in a lot of pain.  It was so awful.  He told me several nights in a row, "I don't think I will ever feel better."  I spent a lot of midnight hours that week cuddling him, telling him that I know he hurts, and that I know it stinks.  I told him stories about how our bodies take time to heal, and that I know he will get better eventually because I have hurt before and I have gotten better.  It was a lesson in patience for me, for sure, and an amazing opportunity for me to cuddle my little boy and do my best to help him through something really hard for him.

I think it's interesting how these parenting experiences can sometimes draw up parallel views of our lives here on earth.  Unlike me, Gunner has no experience to draw upon that let him know that things will turn out okay, that he will heal and eventually feel normal. He doesn't know how to see past the pain and know that it was necessary and good for him. 

I can imagine that Heavenly Father is looking down on us when we despair during our trails.  He does His very best to comfort us, to tell us that it will be okay, that our hearts will heal, that we will learn and grow and be better people if we can endure to the end.  Like Gunner, I stubbornly say, "Nope, I'm never going to feel better.  I'm never going to heal from this.  Why did you do this to me?!  It's all your fault!  Why did you ever call the doctor?!?!  I wish you didn't have a phone!  I'm going to throw your phone in the garbage!"  (Wait, that's what Gunner said to me. Hahaha!)  And Heavenly Father comforts me even more with his infinite patience and love.

I appreciate the lesson I learned here and times when I can see my life through more of an eternal perspective.  I need to work on being more patient and loving with my children who have even less of experience than I do of enduring through trials.

And now, 14 days out, Gunner is feeling so much better, thank goodness.  It took him a week to sleep all the way through the night, and each day and night is better since then.  A friend recommended putting a humidifier in his room at night (why didn't I think of that?!), and giving him chewable medicine instead of liquid.  Both made a world of difference.  The most amazing thing is that he told Spiff one morning, unprompted, that he could tell that he was breathing more easily without those huge tonsils in the way.