We have been concerned about his weight loss for the past few months and seen the doctor a few times. On one hand, this is great for me because I heart my pediatrician, but, on the other, it means something is not going right. As of last week, he now weighs less than he did when he turned two and has lost at least two pounds over the past six months.
Some time in June I was reading Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book (yes, again) about night waking. I happened across a section about snoring and how most kids don't normally snore. I had just noticed that Trey (my slight little boy) had started snoring, even when he lies on his stomach. One point of interest to me in the book was about a study they did of eight children who snored and five of them were underweight. Hmmmmm...... Weissbluth also talks about how snoring affects sleep quality which can affect school performance, attention span, mood, behavior problems, etc., but I was trying not to go there. When I mentioned the snoring to my doctor in June when we visited due to Trey's illness and high fever, I felt like she sort of brushed me off. I figured I'd bring it up again at his three year well visit.
His three year well visit was last Monday, and we spent the majority of the time talking about diet, nutrition, food, etc. due to the fact that Trey had lost weight AGAIN since June. At the very end of the appointment, I said, "Well, the only other thing I wanted to talk to you about was his snoring. You mentioned that he had generous tonsils." She looked at his tonsils again and confirmed that they were "generous" (aka BIG), and now seemed concerned about the tonsils, snoring, and weight loss. THANK YOU. She asked me to go see an ENT which we did on Friday.
We visited the ENT on Friday and I gave her some background. After that, she looked in his ears, nose, and throat (shocking, I know). When she looked in his throat, her eyes got wide and she said, "Oh, they're huge!" She told me that his tonsils are so big they are touching and are making swallowing difficult. She said on the scale of 1-4 (apparently how they grade tonsil size), his are 4's, and the only intervention is to remove them. She also said that since his tonsils are so big and he's only three years old, she knows his adenoids are big and will remove them at the same time. She is sure that this will improve his breathing/sleeping and will likely impact his eating/weight. I asked her twice if we were being too aggressive about this, and she flatly said no.
So in a span of two weeks, we will have found our child continues to shrink (he is now at the fifth percentile for weight); however, his tonsils continue to grow. Our surgery is scheduled for Monday, July 29th with a 7-10 day recovery.
For having as much of a sweet tooth as Trey does, he's not a fan of ice cream (clearly, not my child), so we have been practicing. I took him to Baskin and Robbins the other day and introduced him to orange sherbet and rainbow sherbet. He picked orange. I also tried to sneak in some daiquiri ice (my favorite) which he would eat without cringing (my mom thought it tasted like shaving cream). I'd call that a success in the daiquiri ice department. I imagine I'll take him for one or two more trips pre-surgery to find something he'll eat. The problem is that he takes tiny licks off of the spoon and doesn't like the cold ice cream in his mouth.
I could go on and on about my nervousness about the surgery, but what I'm really dreading is the recovery. I don't want to see my boy scared or confused before the surgery, and I really don't want to see him in pain afterward. What I'm hoping for is that this surgery helps him sleep more soundly and eat more readily so he will grow. I know this is a common procedure, but whatever it is you do - cross your fingers, think positively, pray - please keep us in your thoughts next week as we go on this adventure.
1 comment:
Will, of course, be thinking of you all. (I'm with your mom, BTW, on the Daiquiri flavored "ice cream.")
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