the little patient

It's been nearly one week since the tonsillectomy and I'm happy to say that Grant has come through it very well. I know tonsil surgeries are quite routine and that children do recover faster, but when the doctor warned us that he'd need to eat soft foods and might not get back into normal eating for more than a week, I was nervous about what it would do to Mr. Barely-in-the-50% Percentile-for-Down-syndrome-Guy.

These pictures are from the day after the surgery-the day we went home. He had a cute doggie hospital bandage covering his IV, but it was taken off before I got there the next morning. Landon had stayed the night with Grant and I went home with Kyle.

The day of surgery we had to get there at an unholy hour in the morning only to have them make us wait forever (typical). But the surgery went quickly and the doctor commented that his tonsils and adenoids were quite huge. Anatomically, everything in there is already smaller - this should give him much more room 'in there.'

This is the new UCLA hospital - just across the street from the old one that was Grant's first home. It was fancy. As fancy as most hotels I've stayed in. And look at this great view!

As I mentioned earlier, I was most worried about the effect of the recovery on Grant's eating. I already have to do a song-and-dance to get him to eat most days..and now THIS. But after I left for the night, Landon reported that Grant had eaten chicken and was drinking well. Yahoo! The next day he downed his pancakes and since then he's eaten well for the most part. They sent us home with pain medication that we've only had to use a small number of times.

So far so good.

If he continues to do as well as he's is now, Landon says we should send Dr. Shapiro flowers.