No more snake tongue!

If you missed the back story, you can read it here.

We got up bright and early this morning to get to Kaiser by 6:30 am.  Andrew was a happy camper like normal and smiled at everyone he saw.  We started in admitting, then went immediately to pre-op where they weighed him, took his pulse ox, temp, etc and gave him some medicine to help him relax (Tylenol with codeine and a two others I didn't recognize).  In the 20 minutes this was happening, he'd already "met" about 15 nurses and doctors charming them with smiles, high fives, and bumps.  There were several seniors around us having out patient surgery done and I'm sure they were probably annoyed at the amount of attention Andrew was getting.  He was given a doctor teddy bear that he held on to tightly. 

Anyway, he was happy and being fun.  Dave and I were calm.  After talking to the surgeon and anesthesiologist, Andrew was just barely getting tired looking but it was time to go.  He willingly went with the RN without tears (I have just a brave boy) and we went back to the waiting room at 7:30 am.

A very long 15 minutes later, we were taken to recovery.  When we walked in Andrew was up and wiggling around in the RN's arms trying to get down.  He was happy to see us, but irritated that the pulse ox thing was still on his toe.  We did our best to distract him (dog app on Dave's phone, apple juice, the iPad) and keep he calm.  It was clear that the "drugged" sensation was completely worn off because he honestly just wanted off my lap to walk/run/climb. 

We talked to both doctors about his surgery.  They reported he was perfect, only needed the mask (vs. the IV) to go to sleep, and now has three stitches in his tongue to put it back together.  As much as he may find the snake look cool as a seventh grader, this mommy is glad it is back together! We were given discharge instructions (liquids only today, soft diet for Thursday, soft diet/normal food if he'll take it after that, Tylenol every 4 hours for pain, don't let him play with it) and out the door by 8:30. 

As he was getting in the car seat, he saw a baggie of Cheerios and quickly let us know he was hungry NOW.  He polished off a baby food pouch within 30 seconds and then finished an apple sauce packet, but really wanted the Cheerios and was mad at me that I wouldn't let him have them.

When we got home, he was still wobbly, but showed no signs of slowing down and was climbing onto furniture within two minutes of walking in the door.   This video of Andrew and Reese is from 10 am (2.5 hours after surgery) just so it's clear that he's "good."

First major owie!

FYI: there are some nasty pictures of Andrew's tongue at the end of this post (in the second collage)--if you don't like to see it, stop at the end!

It was bound to happen with the crazy shenanigans that Andrew pulls on a daily basis, but I wasn't prepare for it.  On Sunday, after Disneyland, Dave and Melissa were napping, Andrew was playing calmly with his toys, and I blogged about our trip.  Andrew was getting bored so we had a snack, watched Yo Gabba Gabba and tried to relax in the air conditioning.  Andrew kept climbing into the low, squishy recliner and leaning towards the entertainment center and either Melissa or I would tell him to sit on his bottom (we probably say this 1,000 times a day) and he would.  All of a sudden, an ear piercing scream and cry have Melissa and I up immediately and grabbing Andrew.  Although we were both there, neither of us saw exactly what he did, but I'm assuming he tried to reach the X Box stuff and went head first into the corner of the entertainment center. 

When Melissa picked him up, there was a lot of blood immediately.  It was literally pouring out of his mouth.  We ran into the kitchen with him, sitting him on the counter and tried to stop/clean up some of the blood with a wet paper towel.  It was flowing (so much that Melissa's hand was covered, running down her arms, splattered on the floor and counter) and he'd let us no where near his mouth.  His chin was clearly cut too, but the blood was from inside.

Dave gave him some Tylenol, we bribed him with a otter pop, he continued to scream and bleed.  Finally, he opened his mouth enough so that I could see his tongue and it was pretty clear that it was severed.  I panicked a little bit, but Melissa kept me calm.  Dave called the Kaiser nurse line and left a message. After 45 minutes it was still bleeding and he was still crying; I decided we were going in without waiting for the nurse to call back.  As we pulled into the parking lot at Kaiser, she called back and told us to come immediately and they were waiting for us.  I'm not sure if Andrew was overwhelmed, tired, drugged, or a combination, but he slept in the car and in the waiting room at urgent care.  He was covered in blood and stunk to high heavens.

When we went in, it was pretty clean immediately to the nurses and doctor that he needed stitches/glue on his chin, but they were a bit stumped on his tongue.  The policy is basically "do nothing" because it heals on its own, but they'd never seen one quite as bad as Andrew's. They came in and out of the room several times; thankfully Andrew was relatively calm and happy to play with daddy and his toys that I had the piece of mind to grab on our way out the door.  He still didn't want anyone to touch his mouth and bloody drool was flowing; when he cried, it really flowed.  They told us that they were going to call "plastics at Fontana" to figure out what to do, but thankfully, Dr. Perez, one of the Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctors, was close by and was willing to stop in and check it out.  He got there about 10 minutes later and examined Andrew.  At that point, we realized he also had two indents on the top pallet of his mouth.  Dr. Perez was reassuring that it should close on its own and that it was okay to bleed (and could continue for up to 24 hours).  He scheduled a follow up for us to see him today (Tuesday morning) so he could make sure it was healing and decide if it needed stitches.
We had a rough night.  On Monday, Dave stayed home with Andrew (he was supposed to go to daycare) so I could get my classroom moved.  Andrew was pretty normal, just a bit more whiny and less willing to eat than normal.  He napped poorly and slept poorly last night too.  I ended up sleeping with him from 2-6:30 am.

This morning, Dr. Perez checked Andrew out and decided that Andrew does need to have some stitches to reattach the flap on his tongue.  He mentioned several times that would probably heal on its own in several weeks, but because it was healing "slower than he expected" stitches would probably be the best bet.  He also said that most likely Andrew was "playing" with it in his mouth causing the slow healing and random blood we're still seeing.
His surgery will be tomorrow at 7:30 am (we check in at 6:30) and will be preformed by the chief of ENT.  Depending on how Andrew cooperates, the surgery could last anywhere from 10-30 minutes, but they do have to put him to sleep with anesthesia (can you imagine trying to sew the tongue of a 16 month old while they are awake?!?).  There is a bunch of very gross medical stuff the doctor started to explain to me today, but I totally couldn't handle it so I asked him to stop (he started with, "so we'll go in and re-cut his tongue...), but basically the surgeon wants to "get in and get out" and his dissoluble stitches will be gone in 7-10 days and his tongue should be back to normal.

STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE ACTUAL INJURY

which I totally would not want to see!

Dave took these about 24 hours after it happened.  The white part you see is actually a good thing according to the ENT and identifies that healing is occurring.  You can tell on the left (Andrew's right) side it is detached flap.  The right is healing from a puncture type bite.