Tanner's Sinus Surgery

On September 15th Tanner had sinus surgery to correct his deviated septum. Tanner has been plagued with terrible allergies for years. We finally sent him to see Dr. McMasters who specializes in ear nose and throat. It turns out that Tanner's septum was shaped like and "S." So it was basically closing off one of his nostrils. When he would blow his nose it sounded like a fog horn but didn't sound like he was getting anything out. He also had pollups so he had to take steroids for ten days to help them shrink. His "air conditioning vents" (layman's term, I am sure) on the left bottom was three times as big as the others. So the doctor had to go and drill it out and then shave it down to normal size. The doctor also ended up taking out a little bit of adenoid tissue. And he had to take some cartilage out and pound it down to soften it and shaved it down thinner, then put it back in. Sounds like tons of fun, doesn't it?

This is Tanner before the surgery. I told him that his nose would look different after the surgery so we had to have a before picture to compare. Tanner was pretty nervous before the surgery. So I was trying to lighten the mood. He asked if he would have to wear one of the butt bearing hospital gowns and why. I told him it was so they could have easy access in case they needed to crack his chest open while he was on the operating table. I am an optimist in case you couldn't tell. This definitely calmed his nerves.

I also told him that he would have to be able to go to the bathroom before they would let him leave the hospital or they would have to put in a catheter. That really excited him too!

He was not a happy camper when he came out of recovery. He didn't like having this nose strap on to catch the blood. And I am sure if he finds out I have posted this picture he will strangle me.

Tanner was pretty miserable. The pain medication took awhile to kick in and it made him dizzy. He definitely didn't like the feeling of the anesthesia.

The first night home was definitely the worst. After dinner the blood and mucus really started to drain. They told him not to swallow it because it would make him sick. So he has to spit every few seconds. He spit up quite a few blood clots, some the size of golf balls.

Tanner normally hates it when I put anything in my blog about him. But he told me to take this picture and be sure to put in the blog that he filled a twenty ounce Dairy Queen cup with blood. And we actually dumped it several times. So throughout the night he probably spit over a quart of blood. YUMM!!!

He was so exhausted but couldn't sleep because of the blood draining. But he finally just gave up and laid back in the chair. I slept on the couch to keep an eye on him and help him with anything he needed during the night. We finally fell asleep around midnight and didn't wake up until around 3 a.m. After about an hour we fell asleep again and woke up at 6 a.m. so I could go to work.

Brandi was nice enough to take the day off so I took Tanner to her house so she could take care of him for the day. The next few days weren't much fun. He had stint stitched in his nose to keep his septum straight. He couldn't blow his nose and that really drove him crazy.

On Tuesday he was able to go in and have the stints removed. He called and said, "I can breathe! I didn't know this was how it was supposed to feel to breathe through my nose."

So he has a whole new world to explore but still has the allergies to deal with. Our next step will be to do some allergy testing to see if he can just get a shot to help take care of them. We have our fingers crossed that will help.