Last Tuesday, Gibson had surgery. A tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy. That's a mouthful, isn't it? (Ha! Literally! Ha ha ha ha...... Oh heavens. I am so hilarious.) No, but really. Those tonsils of his were HUGE and getting in the way of all kinds of important things. You know, like eating and breathing. And they were making him wet the bed too, which tripled the amount of laundry I was doing! (Those #$*@! tonsils! The source of all my laundry woes!)
I've gotten quite the tonsil-related education recently, and frankly, am completely amazed at how our bodies work. And how something so seemingly insignificant as incredibly large tonsils can have such a huge effect on so many other things. Let's take for example the fact that Gib's large tonsils were causing him to suffer from sleep apnea. Something we never would have discovered save for that fateful night when he climbed in bed with us at 2:30am and proceeded to snore and gasp like a 70 year old man for the next five and a half hours. Somewhere, in the middle of my 18th attempt to turn his noisy, snoring little body on it's side so that we could grab at least a couple of hours sleep, my husband said to me "Hey. Listen to him...... Really listen to him..... I think he may have sleep apnea." And Lo and Behold, once I shook myself free of my middle-of-the-night-should-be-sleeping-but-can't daze, it was the most obvious thing in the world. I mean, let's face it, do you actually have to gasp for breath if you don't have sleep apnea? He'd snore in....and snore out.....snore in.....snore out.....snore in....snore out............. and then ......................nothing..................all quiet..............for at least 5 seconds or so............and then.........GASP!!! He'd start the whole cycle over again.
We sat there, both of us, at 3:45am, staring at him in disbelief.
So, the big tonsils cause the sleep apnea. The sleep apnea causes the bedwetting, and the poor school performance. Here's what I learned from our rockin' ENT Specialist. (Ear, Nose and Throat -- just to clarify.) Sleep apnea is a "stage 4" sleep disorder. This means that Gibson's body was never reaching REM stage. The stage where your body basically paralyzes itself and allows you to get a restful sleep. It's why adults with sleep apnea get up to whiz 3 or 4 or 5 times a night. Their bodies never "shut down the bladder" like they're supposed to. But kids, it seems, don't actually wake up. They just pee the bed. And sleep in it. At least in Gibson's case.
And how might sleep apnea affect school performance? Well, it would seem that a stage four sleep disorder like sleep apnea also means that he was only getting the equivalent of 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. Three to four hours a night! Can you imagine? The lack of sleep leaves him with the inability to focus -- being totally exhausted and all. Hence the weekly behavior reports we get that say "Is easily distracted and sometimes distracts others." So now, in hindsight, I think "Well, DUH!' The kid's not sleeping. Which makes him behave a little like -- to borrow a phrase from my mom -- a fart in a skillet. And it would also explain why, as we saw in a snippet of a news story whilst channel surfing, they are discovering that sleep apnea is being misdiagnosed in children as ADHD. Interesting stuff, eh?
And to be perfectly honest, even with a total lack of sleep he was pretty darn pleasant! If I had to function every day on the equivalent of 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night I would eventually be a raving lunatic -- Having melt-downs over nothing and crying face down in a plate of spaghetti at the dinner table. (Wait. That sounds familiar........ Maybe I've done that. Or maybe it was Gibson. Who knows. It's not uncommon for someone to be crying at the dinner table in our house.) In any case, I get it now. I finally understand. I understand why he cried uncontrollably (and I mean uncontrollably) when I made him use a regular towel instead of a "baby" towel to dry off with after his bath two weeks ago. I understand why he'd occasionally climb into the car at the end of a long school day, just looking for a good fight -- and doing everything in his power to instigate an argument with his brother.
Poor kid.
And now instead of having my frustration, he has my sympathy.
And Tylenol with Codine.
And lots and lots of popsicles.
Goodbye tonsils. And good riddance.
I've gotten quite the tonsil-related education recently, and frankly, am completely amazed at how our bodies work. And how something so seemingly insignificant as incredibly large tonsils can have such a huge effect on so many other things. Let's take for example the fact that Gib's large tonsils were causing him to suffer from sleep apnea. Something we never would have discovered save for that fateful night when he climbed in bed with us at 2:30am and proceeded to snore and gasp like a 70 year old man for the next five and a half hours. Somewhere, in the middle of my 18th attempt to turn his noisy, snoring little body on it's side so that we could grab at least a couple of hours sleep, my husband said to me "Hey. Listen to him...... Really listen to him..... I think he may have sleep apnea." And Lo and Behold, once I shook myself free of my middle-of-the-night-should-be-sleeping-but-can't daze, it was the most obvious thing in the world. I mean, let's face it, do you actually have to gasp for breath if you don't have sleep apnea? He'd snore in....and snore out.....snore in.....snore out.....snore in....snore out............. and then ......................nothing..................all quiet..............for at least 5 seconds or so............and then.........GASP!!! He'd start the whole cycle over again.
We sat there, both of us, at 3:45am, staring at him in disbelief.
So, the big tonsils cause the sleep apnea. The sleep apnea causes the bedwetting, and the poor school performance. Here's what I learned from our rockin' ENT Specialist. (Ear, Nose and Throat -- just to clarify.) Sleep apnea is a "stage 4" sleep disorder. This means that Gibson's body was never reaching REM stage. The stage where your body basically paralyzes itself and allows you to get a restful sleep. It's why adults with sleep apnea get up to whiz 3 or 4 or 5 times a night. Their bodies never "shut down the bladder" like they're supposed to. But kids, it seems, don't actually wake up. They just pee the bed. And sleep in it. At least in Gibson's case.
And how might sleep apnea affect school performance? Well, it would seem that a stage four sleep disorder like sleep apnea also means that he was only getting the equivalent of 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. Three to four hours a night! Can you imagine? The lack of sleep leaves him with the inability to focus -- being totally exhausted and all. Hence the weekly behavior reports we get that say "Is easily distracted and sometimes distracts others." So now, in hindsight, I think "Well, DUH!' The kid's not sleeping. Which makes him behave a little like -- to borrow a phrase from my mom -- a fart in a skillet. And it would also explain why, as we saw in a snippet of a news story whilst channel surfing, they are discovering that sleep apnea is being misdiagnosed in children as ADHD. Interesting stuff, eh?
And to be perfectly honest, even with a total lack of sleep he was pretty darn pleasant! If I had to function every day on the equivalent of 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night I would eventually be a raving lunatic -- Having melt-downs over nothing and crying face down in a plate of spaghetti at the dinner table. (Wait. That sounds familiar........ Maybe I've done that. Or maybe it was Gibson. Who knows. It's not uncommon for someone to be crying at the dinner table in our house.) In any case, I get it now. I finally understand. I understand why he cried uncontrollably (and I mean uncontrollably) when I made him use a regular towel instead of a "baby" towel to dry off with after his bath two weeks ago. I understand why he'd occasionally climb into the car at the end of a long school day, just looking for a good fight -- and doing everything in his power to instigate an argument with his brother.
Poor kid.
And now instead of having my frustration, he has my sympathy.
And Tylenol with Codine.
And lots and lots of popsicles.
Goodbye tonsils. And good riddance.
1 comment:
Oh man, when I had my tonsils out I couldn't eat anything. Lucky Gibson with the popsicles...
I am very happy everything has worked out.
Doesn't it scare you how "research" and the media drives a medical diagnosis? Example, when I had my tonsils out so many of us where having that done... it was almost a right of passage. Then there was this kind of movement against having it done and ADHD came in and every kid had it. Now autism is the latest and every other kid is being diagnosed with it. It absolutely frightens me.
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