Tonsillectomy (Warning Photos!)

The Short Chic came down with a pretty nasty case of strep throat back in April. So, when The Boy started complaining about his throat hurting about 12 days later, I was pretty confident that he had inherited his sister's strep. Instead, The Boy was diagnosed with a peritonsillar abscess growing on his right tonsil. 

We had to immediately see an ENT Physician who took a needle and drained the abscess. He removed about 5.5 cc of puss from The Boys throat.and then told us that once you have a peritonsillar abscess you were high risk to keep getting them. The Boy's tonsils were now compromised and needed to be removed. 

We were told to plan for a two week recovery so we worked a surgery into our summer plans. Between family vacations, summer sports, and the beginning of school The Boy had his second surgery. A tonsillectomy. 

Pre-surgery prepping went well. It must be nice to be young and have healthy veins for an IV! The Boy had lots of pre-surgery visitors. My mother came down. My in-laws came to visit. As well as both Mom and Dad were there for The Boy during surgery. We all passed the time waiting for our turn in the operating room. 

The ENT Physician told us post surgery that all went well.  He said that The Boy actually had another abscess growing in his left tonsil and it was just a matter of time before it became a problem like the right tonsil. 

 Our post surgery  instructions were pretty simple: avoid milk products for one day, soft foods only, eat what feels okay on the throat, and no physical exercise for two weeks. I attempted to make fancy cold soups for him. He hated the cold corn and shrimp soup but loved the Disney World Cold Strawberry Soup. He found that Jello felt the best on his throat. 

Below are photos of the healing process. The Boy was in very little pain on Day 1. The hardest part was reminding him to eat soft foods. The area where the tonsils use to be were yellow from the medicine the doctor put on his throat to control bleeding.   By Day Three, scabs were forming and the yellow was turning dark. The whole area just looked thick. 

In the second week post surgery everything looked to be thinning out. His largest risk was pulling a scab off with food, increasing the likelihood of bleeding.

We got lucky, there was no bleeding. He was in a significant amount of pain but overall I think he handled this well. He did manage to lose about six pounds.  We were suppose to have our post surgery follow up appointment today with the ENT Physician but they had to cancel due to an emergency. We will now wait another three weeks. 

Hopefully, The Boy can enjoy his last two weeks of summer before he starts his senior year of high school.