Ryan’s been having trouble with a stuffy nose for the last 2-3 months. He was constantly sniffing and rubbing his nose, and no amount of coaxing or scolding could get him to leave it alone. So about 3 weeks ago we took him to an ear, nose, & throat specialist to get it checked out. The doctor put a camera up Ryan’s nose and determined that he had a capillary hemangioma that needed to be removed. His right nostril was almost completely blocked, so no wonder he was having trouble!
The surgery was scheduled for last Tuesday morning. The plan was to do a CT scan right before the surgery, so the surgeon could get good images of the growth, and so that Ryan would only need to be under anesthesia one time.
Here he is all checked in and ready to go.
He was pretty excited about the little Sanford Health crocodile they gave him. : )
Just hanging out with Mom while waiting
I was able to stay with him until he was put to sleep,
which was very nice, but also difficult.
He did NOT want to change into the hospital’s scrubs for the surgery.
I finally convinced him to wear the top, but the nurse reassured me that it was not worth the battle to make him change out of his own pajama pants & socks. ; )
~
Immediately afterward, the surgeon came into our room with a great big smile and some good news. He was carrying this jar in his hand…
The CT scan had revealed a big surprise – Ryan did not have a capillary hemangioma after all. That tiny red plastic thing is a pellet from one of his big brothers’ airsoft guns! We had no idea it was stuck in his nose for the last 2-3 months.
Poor boy… that must have been miserable!
Here he is after surgery… so sleepy!
Starting to wake up a little bit
They expected that the breathing tube used for the surgery would make his throat sore. So they offered him Jello, and he insisted on feeding himself,
even though he still had an IV in his hand. : )
Happy to be heading home!
(He actually was happy about it, just not happy to have his picture taken. ; )
Evidently the breathing tube didn’t make his throat too sore…
We picked up McDonalds on the way home because chicken nuggets are his favorite.
He ate the entire Happy Meal and cried for more. He hadn’t eaten anything but Jello since the night before, so he was hungry!
We are very thankful for a safe and successful surgery! It’s never easy to hand your child over to be put to sleep. Ryan has recovered well – he didn’t even take a nap that afternoon. Guess he had a big enough nap in the morning!
(We haven’t decided yet what to do with the BB…
guess we’ll wait ‘til the bills come to see what it’s worth. ; )
~
*If medical images are not your thing, you might want to skip the rest of this post.
If you would like to see some amazing images of the BB in Ryan’s nose, keep going…
This photo was taken with tiny camera in Ryan’s nose. Because the color blended in so well with the surrounding tissue, it was difficult to tell what it was.
These two images are from the CT scan:
Ryan’s nose is pointing up at the ceiling here.
The red arrow points to a hollow circle that is the BB.
This one is a profile view. As you can see, it was pretty far in there! The surgeon reassured us that even if they had known what it was from the beginning, it would have taken surgery to remove it. There was no way they would have gotten that out with him awake. Wow!
~
All 3 of our boys have now put something in each of their noses…
Evan stuck a piece of corn in his nose, which we were able to get out by blowing hard into his mouth. Luke got a bead stuck in his nose, which had to be taken out at the ENT’s office. And now this with Ryan. What next?! ; )
No comments:
Post a Comment