Our poor little Lincoln has suffered with sleep apnea since birth. Which has meant many sleepless nights and wandering the house while everyone else was sleeping. Cole and I have just come accustomed to his extremely loud snoring and finding things moved around the house when we got up the next morning. Sometimes it even looked like someone had a party in his room in the middle of the night. He always had dark circles under his eyes and could pass out anywhere if he sat still for more than 5 minutes. That meant any trip in the car, whether in town or just to the grocery store, was a scheduled nap for him.
His pediatrician told us that it was caused by his enlarged tonsils and that with normal growth he should grow out of it. We were told to just keep checking back to see if there was any improvement since we was so young the doctor figured the rest of his body would just catch up with his tonsils. We continued to check his throat over the next year and noticed that it was only getting worse. His tonsils had completely closed off the back of his throat. They were now kissing as the doctor explained it. He was forced to breathe with his mouth open and had a hard time swallowing anything. It was also starting to affect his speech. We met with his doctor again and were sent to ENT now that he was 3 years old. The pediatrician informed us that they prefer not to do surgery on children that are younger and that was the main reason he was making us wait.
After waiting 2 1/2 years and 6 weeks to actually get in to see the Pediatric ENT, we were finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. The ENT took one look at Lincoln and scheduled surgery. He even asked us why we waited to so long to bring him in. We explained that due to his age we were instructed to wait until he was 3 or older. The ENT told us that in extreme cases like Lincoln's surgery can be done at any age, but it would mean he would have to be admitted into the hospital and monitored for complications. Good to know for the future, bad to know that Lincoln's been suffering longer than necessary.
So at the end of April Lincoln finally got the help that he most desperately needed. He had his tonsils and adenoids removed and tubes placed in each ear. He officially came out a talking robot! The actual surgery lasted about 20 minutes and he was ready to move to post-op before Cole even made it to the surgery center. This boy is such a trooper! He never even cried or complained once. All he wanted to do was sleep and eat. We were told to give him soft cold foods for the first couple of days, but Lincoln was not ok with that. He wanted real food. Only 3 hours after being released to go home he ate an entire bowl of oatmeal and for dinner that night he had a chicken leg. That boy never looked back after that. He was eating normal food from that point on. He never wanted a popsicle or a frozen go-gurt or ice cream. He wanted chips or crackers or anything else that you would think might hurt his throat. He even refused to take the pain meds that the doctor gave us. We were in complete shock with how well he recovered.
His snoring was gone immediately. Even now I have to go in his room to check and see if he's actually asleep because I can no longer hear him snoring over the TV. As for his nightly parties....they still happen on occasion, but are less frequent. After 3 years of having them I'm sure it's hard to get out of the habit. Most nights he does actually sleep through the night with no interruptions. His health has improved and his has been having a growth spurt every since. He's probably grown more than an inch and we are just waiting to see if he'll actually start putting on weight soon. Before surgery he only out weighed Lynden by 5 lbs. He is still working on improving his speech and we're hoping that Preschool next year will help him with the sounds he is missing. I got so used to the old way that he used to talk that now I even have a hard time understanding him sometimes.
We are so grateful that everything has turned out so well for Lincoln. It's fun to see just how much he has changed in only a few months and how much happier he is. We now get to see just how much personality our little boy has and how much he enjoys pestering his sisters!
