Peterson Bunch: Drew's Surgery- 6/26/12

Drew was born with a cleft in his soft palate and because of that cleft he was getting fluid in his ears. So from the very beginning we knew he was going to have his palate repaired and during his consultation for the surgery we found out he would need tubes in his ears as well. So on the 26th of June we took him up to Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake and he was put under general anesthesia. The surgeon was Dr. Harlan Muntz and he performed a palatoplasty (closed up the cleft by cutting the muscles and changing their direction from sitting vertically to horizontally so the cleft could be closed) and tympanostomy (fancy word for ear tubes). Poor little Drew looked so swollen and out of it when he came out from surgery, he was not a happy boy. They had placed a little suture on his tongue and taped it to his cheek (called a tongue stitch) just in case they needed to pull his tongue out for breathing purposes which added to his uncomfortable state. It had to stay in until the next morning.

It was suppose to be just an overnight stay but Drew wouldn't eat by the morning after the surgery so he had to be admitted and stay another night. The only thing I could get him to drink was the milk that I would have to force feed him with a syringe and so they kept him another night after that so he could stay on the IV and be monitored. Another day came and he still refused to drink from his bottle and so it was decided that he needed a feeding tube in and because we would be taking him home with it in the nurse gave me some instructions and then had me place the feeding tube in the poor boy just in case I had to do it again at home. The surgery was on a Tuesday morning and finally on Friday afternoon we got to bring him home, still not drinking from a bottle but through a feeding tube. After being home for a week and still having to use the feeding tube I finally decided I was just going to take the feeding tube out and lucky for us after going for six hours without eating and with much crying he finally drank from his bottle and after a few days of crying every time we tried to feed him he was back to normal and would just take a bottle without any fussing. While I dreaded the whole process I am glad it is all over and done with. It is amazing what that surgery did for him. It use to take almost an hour to feed him each time because he couldn't suck or create a vacuum in his mouth and had to work really hard to get the milk out and now it takes about fifteen minutes for him to eat, it is wonderful for all of us!

These first pictures are before the surgery, hence the pleasant disposition.

This is how he first looked coming out of the anesthesia. The blue bands on his arms were called, "no nos", to keep him from grabbing his tongue stitch.