Post Surgery Update!

Tomorrow will be two weeks since William had his adenoids and tonsils removed! The surgery went well and the recovery went mostly well, apart from a blip with a tissued cannula!

Excited to be seeing the back
of his tonsils!

Recovering from his tissued cannula

After a not so good experience at our first attempt to go for surgery, we had a much better experience this time round. Everything went a lot smoother, the surgeon was expecting William and the anaesthetist was lovely. William was in very good spirits while waiting on the ward which helped us to know he was feeling good. William was taken to surgery at half 11 and by twenty past 12 we were called back to recovery where he was already recovering, needing just some wafting oxygen. The surgeon came to see us and said his tonsils were very large so we should see an improvement now they have been removed. William was moved to HDU shortly after and then to a normal ward later that day.

During the night William was still receiving fluids through his cannula and at some point (despite hourly checks) the cannula dislodged into his tissue (rather than into his vein) and fluid was pumped into his tissue causing his hand to swell quite dramatically. A plastic surgery Dr was called to check him over but thankfully they weren't too concerned and just advised to keep his arm elevated to encourage the fluid to drain. A small blip in the grand scheme of things and we were able to go home the following day.

A happy day!

He's been up and down in the last fortnight but considering what he's been through he has coped brilliantly. We've had several very quiet days which we suspect might be one of the ways William copes with and processes pain, but we've also had lots of happy days. Apart from a little episode last week, all the spot checks we've done on his oxygen saturations have been perfect which is quite unusual for William so we are hoping this is a positive outcome of the surgery but only time will tell. Knowing William and his variability we will need a good six months to assess how successful the surgery has been for him, but so far most indicators are positive.


Over the last year or so William has struggled a lot with excessive thick mucus in the back of his throat. We had seen some significant improvement in the last few months since he'd gone dairy free but since surgery he has seemed to struggle more again. The structure of the back of his mouth must feel quite different now and he seems to be struggling more to get his secretions forward enough in his mouth so we can suction them out. Hopefully this will improve over time as his throat settles down more and he gets used to it. His mucus production may also be linked to hayfever or other variables so he'll hopefully settle down by themselves.

Check back soon to hear about William's latest 'project'!