Robin’s Tonsillectomy

Warning: at the bottom of this post is a somewhat graphic picture of Robin’s tonsils four days after the surgery. If you don’t want to see it, don’t go all the way to the bottom :)

After having trouble with Robin’s tonsils for quite some time and at the recommendation of two doctors, we decided to have Robin’s tonsils removed. The operation was last Wednesday (May 16th). It is a fairly standard procedure and our Doctor was very confident that everything would go fine. So far, I would say the recovery has not gone quite as planned. In Germany, a short hospital stay is to be expected after the surgery – for Robin it was 5 days. Between day 2 and 3 in the hospital, Robin lost consciousness in the bathroom. He fell and hit his head resulting in a concussion. He spent the next day in bed feeling dizzy. He came home on Sunday morning. He had a few things to eat (ice cream, water, a slice of cheese) then took his medicine and threw up. There is a risk of bleeding after the surgery, so I had to check the vomit to make sure there was no blood in it (there wasn’t). After that, he decided to stop taking his pain medication because he felt it was the cause of his queasiness. After that he was feeling better and the pain was manageable. Tuesday night he woke up at 2 AM, told me he was tasting blood and proceeded to spit saliva into a cup. Again, due to the risk of bleeding, I got to check the saliva. Some blood, but not too much. We waited… slowly, there was more and more blood (until he was only spiting out blood). We left for the emergency room. By the time we arrived in the hospital Robin’s spit was not quite as bloody. The nurse on duty called the ENT (ear, nose, throat)  doctor. Once he arrived they started checking things and yes, Robin was bleeding – not much but it was not stopping very quickly (we were about 2 hours into spitting out blood at this point). To stop the blood Robin received a shot of adrenaline and got to stay in the hospital for 48 hours for observation. Only 5% of tonsillectomy patients experience bleeding afterwards – Robin now belongs to the 5%. Assuming everything goes well, he comes home from the hospital tomorrow. The nice thing about the whole experience is that we have learned quite a bit about hospitals and dealing with doctors. It isn’t quite over yet, but we think everything will work out fine in the end.