Tonsils

When Kagen was 20 months old, our family had moved to Anson and the week we were starting our new jobs, Kagen came down with a throat infection. It happened my first day of work, so Zach was faced with finding a pediatrician that would accept a new patient that wasn't a newborn. He found Dr. Justin Smith who is actually my secretary's nephew, is from Jim Ned, and whom Cheryl competed against at some UIL meets back in high school. So, yes, he is younger than me, so I was a little skeptical, but went with it. Zach took Kagen in and Dr. Smith wanted to send Kagen to an ENT right away due to his abnormally large tonsils. When I got wind of it, I thought it was crazy. Our pediatrician in Lubbock had never even mentioned his tonsils before and this was his first infection. So, against the doctor's wishes, we didn't take him to the ENT at that time. At his 2 year check up, I explained my concerns to Dr. Smith and he said it was fine. He was just concerned that he might have sleep apnea based on his horrible snoring and his large tonsils. Another year and a half went by with only 2 more infections. However, at the beginning of this summer, we went to San Antonio and had to sleep in the same room with Kagen. His snoring was awful and he would stop several times causing concern. When I took Braden in for his 9 month check up, I asked Dr. Smith to refer us once again to the ENT. He looked at Kagen's throat, listened about his snoring and definitely sent in a referral. Zach had to take Kagen to the ENT while I was at a math conference. The ENT took one look at Kagen's throat and said, "Wow." He was then scheduled for surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids. This ended up cancelling our return trip to San Antonio, but will hopefully be the best decision we could have made for Kagen. The doctor said his lungs were probably having to work extra hard when he was sleeping which causes his body to get much less rest than needed. Sleep apnea can lead to early hypertension (which he is already at risk for thanks to me and my family) and Type 2 diabetes. We decided those were not risks we wanted to take.

Putting stickers on his hospital gown/shirt and on George and Mommy.

Waiting to be taken back

Driving a car back to surgery

In recovery (I look worse off than him in this picture.)

A few hours after surgery, at home on the couch doing really well


The first 2 days after surgery went very well. Kagen was eating and drinking and just doing great. Then day 3 came and it all fell apart. We had already been having to sneak his HORRIBLE tasting medicine into popsicles and he had decided that he no longer wanted them. The next 5 days proved challenging for us and painful for Kagen. We were both questioning why we made this decision and saying we would never put Braden through this. However, now 12 days later, our boy is all the way back to normal and is doing great, with NO SNORING! Many prayers went up and they have been answered. Now we just hope this prevents Kagen from future problems.